No Power in the 'Verse
by cupid-painted-blind
Summary: Book Three of As the Turn of the Worlds. It's a race against time and the full force of the Alliance military to get Aang back from the Fire Lord. Meanwhile, the crew is forced to fall back onto Toph's family for sanctuary while Yue, alone in the Fire Nation, is in over her head trying to thwart Azula, who has a plan for the rebels, a high-military Alliance secret called the Pax...
1. Prelude: Miranda

_As the Turn of the Worlds_ : Aang never woke up from the iceberg, and the world went on without him, and without the Avatar. Over the next three thousand years, technology advanced astronomically - literally, the people of the overcrowded world taking to the stars, colonizing a whole new solar system with dozens of planets and hundreds of moons. Now, the Avatar is a barely-remembered myth, bending is regarded as a relic of a rightfully-dead past - and any children showing bending talent are scooped up by the government for "teaching" and are never seen again - and only two of the original countries still exist: the Fire Nation, part of the Union of Allied Planets and still one of the most powerful forces in it, and the Water Tribe, clinging to life on the Outer Rim, fighting desperately for the dream of independence. The most recent civil war ended seven years ago, in a landslide victory for the Alliance - but that doesn't mean that the fight for independence is over.

 _Book Three: No Power in the 'Verse_ : With Aang in the Fire Lord's clutches, it's a race against time and the full force of the Alliance military to free him and somehow keep war from breaking out again in the Outer Rim. Meanwhile, the crew is forced to fall back on Toph's family for sanctuary, and Yue - alone in the Fire Nation - is in over her head, trying to keep out of sight and find a way to stop Azula, who has something big up her sleeve, a high-military Alliance secret she plans to unleash on the rebellious border planets, something called the Pax...

 **Author's Note** : There's no decent excuse for this taking five years to get from writing to publishing. I'm so sorry, to my loyal readers. But here we are, book three!

* * *

 **As the Turn of the Worlds**

Book Three: No Power in the 'Verse

 _You all got on this boat for different reasons, but you come to the same place. Now I'm asking more of you than I have before, maybe all. Sure as I know anything, I know this: they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave.  
_ -Malcolm Reynolds; Serenity

prelude  
At the Fire Nation palace on Sihnon

Yue's hands shook as she slipped out of the record room, stomach rolling, mind reeling.

She was playing the ultimate con: convincing Princess Azula that she was a mere soldier, a nobody guard that she shouldn't even think to notice, while simultaneously recording all of her outgoing waves and unraveling her plans as she made them. Her brilliant white hair was a problem, but she'd kept it under a helmet most of the time, only her eyebrows giving her away, and as long as she made herself utterly unassuming, Azula wouldn't have cause to ever notice her.

It couldn't last. She knew that - she'd known that when she'd killed one of the guards on a bathroom break and stolen the woman's clothing, when she'd set her own bug in the princess's cortex, when she'd marched the bound-up Avatar into see the Parliament, when she'd looked him in the eyes as Azula locked him in the hold beneath the single most tightly-protected building in the known universe. She didn't mind that it wasn't going to last, not too much; distantly, she was aware that this was all horribly _unfair_ , but the way the Avatar had locked eyes with her, clung to her as his last, most desperate _hope_... she didn't mind going out this way.

It frightened her, down to her bones, but fear hadn't stopped her yet, and with this new development, she was surer than ever that she was doing something important. And right now, before Azula had even noticed her, she had to get the message out - she couldn't be sure if she would have another chance, and this _could not_ wait.

Grunts weren't allowed in the records room, but after Azula had taken her father in earlier that day to show him something, something integral to her plan, a message sent from a rim planet some ten or twelve years ago, Yue had made up her mind to find out what that message was. They must have talked it over in the room - and it must have gone well for Azula - because she had come out looking downright _gleeful_ in a way that had chilled Yue to the bone.

She wasn't allowed into the records room, but she was nothing if not crafty, and after a lot of tinkering, she had managed to bypass the security that locked the message up to everyone short of the top-tier members of Parliament and the Fire Lord himself - even Azula's password hadn't been able to crack into it, so she'd been forced to go in sideways. It had taken work, but she'd succeeded.

She almost wished that she hadn't.

Azula's plan had become clear to her the moment the first image flashed before her eyes, and it only became more and more apparent as she watched the feed, straight until the video cut itself off. She didn't even know where to begin explaining it to _Freedom_ , but the moon goddess had brought her to this place to see _that_ message - she had to get it out before Azula found her and killed her.

Azula was going to do to one planet - her blood ran cold in her veins; there was only one _possible_ target - what the scientists had accidentally done to Miranda. A show of force, a deadly threat to the rest of the Outer Rim, what their fate would be if they tried to be like the Water Tribe, if they tried to be independent, step out of line, side with the Avatar rather than the Princess. With that kind of power at her hand, she would have the entire 'Verse bowing to her, terrified of being _next_.

Yue barely made it to her bunk before she was sick everywhere.


	2. Chapter One: Shadow

_part one_  
On the Firefly-class transport ship _Freedom_

Jet was facing near-mutiny. Bee and Longshot were on his side, and he thought that maybe that was the only thing that was keeping the rest of the crew from turning on him, since Bee was ten times the peacemaker he was, and she'd been the one to make the call in the first place. Toph had locked herself in the engine room and, after seeing to all of their wounds - which itself had taken hours - Haru had been trying to calm her down from her near-homicidal rage; Sokka spent all his time in the Infirmary with the enraged Suki and catatonic Ty Lee; Katara, Zuko, and Mai were in the latter's shuttle, repairing the interior and refusing to speak to anyone else; Pipsqueak and the Duke had each retreated to their own bunks and hadn't returned; Diana hadn't been seen since they landed in the Tower and was presumed dead. His crew were all furious, wounded, and worse, they had nowhere to go.

"Haven?" Bee offered, arms crossed, but Longshot shook his head.

"We don't have the fuel to get us there in under three months. We can go to the next quadrant, or straight through to the Core. Those are the only places close enough for us to go," he said, pointing to the map they were poring over.

"Problem is, none o' those places are safe," Jet mused, and Longshot sighed.

"No," he replied. "Nowhere is safe."

He took a deep breath and leaned forward on the seat. "What's closest? Georgia and the Red Sun are too far out, aren't they?"

Longshot made a face. "We'd be pushing it. Our best course is to go straight, take us into the edge of the Core. Persephone, Pelorum... I know we'll have enough fuel to get there and land."

"They'll be all over us at the Core," Bee said, pointing to the map. "That Tower's gonna make a straight shot for Sihnon and it's gonna need help to get there. The whole quadrant will be lit up with Alliance men, looking for us."

"But we have to go that way eventually," Jet mused, running a hand over his face. "Unless you plan on leavin' Aang to the wiles of the Fire Lord."

"No," Bee replied, and was probably the only person alive who wouldn't take offense to his tone - she knew him well enough to know it wasn't personal, he was just tense. "But we're no good to him dead, and we do have time, since the Fire Lord won't risk killing him. I'd rather we stop somewhere, lick our wounds, get enough fuel to get there, and let the air between us and the Core clear out some."

"Yeah, but where do we go to do that?" Longshot asked, pointing at the Kalidasa system. "Beaumonde is crawling with feds, not to mention all the enemies we have in this system. I like the Haven idea, but we just _can't_ get there. Since we can't do the smart thing, we may as well just go all in."

"Did the two of you have a personality transplant or somethin'?" she asked, trying to lighten the mood, but it only brought a little smile to his and Longshot's faces; Aang's absence and their own recent failure still hung heavy in the air. Bee sighed. "We can't land anywhere in the Core, either. Maybe we should just drift for a while?"

"No," another voice said, an Jet turned to see Toph walking sullenly onto the bridge, followed by Haru. "Drifting won't do us any good, we can't fix the ship while we're flying. Make for Pelorum."

"You got information you wanna share with the rest of us?" he asked, crossing his arms. "Pelorum's full of Alliance sorts, and there's nowhere we can hide."

"That's not true," Haru said, and then gestured at Toph. "Tell them," he said quietly, and then under his breath, "they'll understand."

"The Bei Fong estate," she gritted out finally. Bee barked out a laugh.

"You want us to break into one of the richest estates on gorram Pelorum? You lose your mind?"

"Not break in," Toph sighed. _"Walk_ in."

"All of Pelorum's estates are crawling with security," Jet said slowly, and Toph took a deep breath. Was she...? He'd thought, back at that party on Persephone, that she'd just picked a highfalutin' name to get through the door, but...

"You know how, a few years back, the youngest member of the Bei Fong family went missing?" she asked, and then gestured to herself. "Well, it's me. I can get us into the estate on Pelorum, and we can terrify everyone into keeping their mouths shut, 'least till we're gone. My parents crashed my account when I ran away, but I know where they hide their money. I can get enough to fix the ship and fuel her up, probably even get us a few new weapons, too."

He watched her carefully for a moment, and the way Haru had his hand on her shoulder: this was not easy for her to do. For some reason, the thought of going home scared her; it was a mark of Toph's loyalty to Aang and trust in him - in spite of everything - that she was even offering. He nodded. "All right, then," he said, "Longshot, make for Pelorum."

* * *

Suki stared at Ty Lee and refused to cry. She simply refused to; she hadn't yet cried for any of her warriors, and she doubted she ever would. Suki didn't get sad over loss - she got _angry._

Seeing Ty Lee pale and half-burned to death from Azula's superheated bending brought up horrible memories, the last time she'd been looking at the only other Kyoshi Warrior (even though Ty Lee only barely qualified), when On Ji had been shot full of holes, fans broken and guns shattered. That was right around the time that Shadow's terraforming had finally collapsed, and she'd already been running for it - she wasn't even able to bury her last warrior. She remembered vague images from that last battle, the taste of dust and iron and salt, the blood haze over her mind, the bodies left in her wake.

To this day, over seven years later, Suki still didn't know how many people she'd killed to avenge On Ji.

Sokka sat on the other side of the Infirmary, watching her with calculating eyes, but she refused to look at him. She should have been there, in the fight - it shouldn't have been Ty Lee going in with her fans, untrained and unprepared. But her _gorram_ knee... Katara and Haru had both told her that she should be glad she could even still feel her leg below it (they claimed it was a good sign, that it meant she'd probably still be able to walk, albeit with a limp) and distantly, she was aware that it really _was_ lucky - but she just - she should have been there.

The captain's voice came over the intercom, and Sokka glanced at it, but she continued to stare at Ty Lee. "We're making for Pelorum, Toph's family's got a house there we can crash at. We're gonna patch up the ship, restock, pick up a few new weapons, and give the Core time to settle down a bit before we make for Sihnon. I'm guessin' it'll be another two to three weeks 'fore we're ready to go down that path. If you got anything to say against that, you can come up to the bridge and say it now." With that, he cut off the feed, and Suki tried to stand - _two weeks?_

The Leader in her recognized the wisdom in laying low for a bit, in licking their wounds and preparing for the assault, but the Warrior inside refused to be held down for two weeks while those - while they - while those _wángbādàn_ just _got away_ -

She couldn't even think straight through the haze of livid _fury;_ there was blood in her mouth but she wasn't sure where it was from.

"Suki," Sokka said firmly - when had he reached her? - holding her down and sitting beside her. "Calm down."

"I _am_ calm," she snapped, and he shook his head.

"No, you're not," he countered, "you're pissed - and you're right to be. I understand. But we have to recover - you and Ty Lee, plus all the scrapes rest of us've got, and the ship's barely still holding together. There's nothing to be gained from a suicidal charge right now."

She was shaking so violently she could barely speak. "I should have been there," she hissed, teeth clenched, vision blurry as she stared at her newest recruit. "It shouldn't have been her."

"What could you have done?" he asked her, voice hardly louder than hers. "You did all you could to protect Aang - "

"And I _failed,"_ she cried, voice breaking with something like hysteria. "Just like I failed On Ji, and mother, and - and - and _Kyoshi._ It was _my_ fight to lose and _I_ failed!"

"We _all_ failed, Suki!" he shouted at her, taking her by the shoulders - her vision slowly cleared, and she could see tears in his eyes. "But it is not - the end. Ty Lee's gonna pull through, and Aang is gonna be fine, and - and you and me," he said desperately, "we're gonna start back up the Kyoshi Warriors, _together._ It's not over."

She shook uncontrollably as he pulled her tight to him, and for the first time in longer than she cared to remember, Suki cried.

* * *

"You don't have to go," Haru said quietly, and Mai looked around the hallway to make sure that no one was coming. Inside the Infirmary, Ty Lee and Suki were asleep, but she didn't know how long they would be that way, or when one of the restless crewmembers would pass by - but she'd missed one dose already in the chaos of the day before, and she didn't want to miss another.

"Yes, I do," she replied, matching his low volume. "I need - I can't stay."

"Have you told anyone else?" he asked, injecting the medication and then taking off his gloves. "That you're leaving?"

"Not yet," she breathed, sitting on the couch while he put away the vial and syringe. When he returned, he stood awkwardly in front of her. "What is it?" she asked. _"You_ haven't told anyone?"

"Of course not," he said immediately, and then sat next to her. "I just - how will the captain take it, when you _do_ tell him?"

Mai looked away; she chose not to think about that most days. Her relationship with the captain was tangled-up and knotted and wrong in so many ways... and there was no way he'd take it well. He'd try to find a way to save her (there was none) and then he'd get angry and blame her for all the things that never happened, and then he'd shut down entirely.

She would rather not ever do that. "I suspect he'll try to make me stay," she replied, knowing that it wasn't what he meant.

"Mai," Haru said softly, "you know that wasn't what I meant."

She closed her eyes. "I'm not going to tell him," she said firmly, shaking her head. "I just - " _can't face it_ " - won't burden him with that. Please, even when I'm - " _dead_ " - not on the ship, don't tell - anyone."

"I won't," he promised, "but I think... Mai, they're your friends, they deserve to know."

"That's precisely why I'm doing this," she whispered. "They _are_ my friends. You know the - " she took a deep, calming breath and focused hard on the rug. "You know what's going to happen to me. It would hurt them too much to watch."

"More than it'll hurt them to know that you died alone?"

Her throat burned - the doctor's blunt words were cutting her deeper than they should, but she would _not_ cry in front of him. "I watched my mother succumb to this," she breathed. "It destroyed her - I would rather she died quickly and painlessly than - " She shook her head again, clenching her teeth and swallowing the desire to hurl herself into someone's arms and _sob._ "I won't do that to them. I just won't."

"It's your decision," he said finally, leaning on his knees. "You'll wait until we've sprung Aang, I trust?"

"Of course," she replied disdainfully, covering her pain with the court mask. "Do you think me entirely callous?"

"I think you're one of the most emotional people on the ship," he answered shortly, and she raised an eyebrow - she'd been called many things in her time, but that had to be the first time anyone had dared to call her _emotional._ At her critical glare, he went on. "You simply don't show it - but you feel it, much deeper than the rest of us. That's why you really can't stay here. It isn't about us having to watch you die, it's about you having to watch us watch you die. You care, I just... hope that they realize how much."

"Me too," she breathed, glancing down.

* * *

Zuko had been strangely distant since Azula had walked in and taken Aang from them, and she wasn't sure why - at first, she had thought it was just because he, like all of them, was pushing to save Aang, but now that they had failed... he was still distant and tense. She brewed a pot of tea and poured two cups, even though she was alone in her shuttle.

She didn't understand - she'd been almost frighteningly sure that his feelings for her ran _deep,_ much too deep for a simple Companion to handle, and as flattering as it was to be the object of a prince's affections, it also terrified her. What if she wasn't good enough? What if he changed his mind? She wasn't even sure she knew what love _was,_ let alone if her attraction to the prince added up to it; she had been comfortable in the knowledge that she, as a Companion, would never find love. It hadn't made her _happy_ to think about, but it was safe.

Nothing about Zuko was safe - he was dark and brooded a lot if she wasn't there to keep his spirits high (which was sure to get old) and he took a lot of effort to simply be around. He exhausted her almost as much as he built her up; it couldn't last.

But he had seemed so sure that it would, and there was something exhilarating about being the one that the prince had _chosen_ \- only now, it was as though he'd suddenly realized all the things that had held her at a distance from the start, like he suddenly knew that they were never meant to be, and had withdrawn.

She was surprised at how much it hurt. Zuko had become a part of her life, as frustrating and exhausting and irritating as he was sometimes, and she... missed him.

Agitated, she picked up her tray and left the sparsely decorated shuttle that had housed her (and Zuko) for almost six weeks now, making for the dining room to share the tea with someone - and she caught the tail end of a conversation outside the Infirmary.

"I just..." Haru was saying, although she didn't know to whom, "hope that they realize how much."

"Me too," another voice said, and it was quiet and hoarse and it tugged at something in her memory - _please don't ask me that question_ \- and she swallowed hard, straightened her shoulders, and walked into the little lounge area.

"Mai, Haru," she said warmly, and they both looked at her with something akin to fear. "I was just looking for someone to share tea with."

Mai stood abruptly and smiled, but it looked forced. "I was just leaving," she said, "but I think the doctor was planning to stay awhile. Until later," she breathed, bowed shortly, and then swept away in an awful rush. Haru watched her go, face blank, and she slowly set the tea tray on the table, eyes never leaving him. Unfortunately, he wasn't giving any ground.

"What kind of tea is it?" he asked, as though Mai had never been there at all.

"Passion flower," she replied, sitting next to him and handing him the rapidly-cooling cup that she usually drank from; it somehow felt _wrong,_ that Haru should drink from Zuko's cup. "What did Mai want?"

"To see Suki and Ty Lee," Haru answered calmly, and Katara wasn't sure why, but she felt like he was lying - she looked for all the usual tells, but everything in his demeanor said that he was telling the truth. She hesitated, and then decided not to press him for information.

"How are they?" she asked, and she wasn't really talking about Suki or Ty Lee.

"Ty Lee is... well," he replied, "I think she'll pull through. Suki - you saw her earlier with me. She's recovering rapidly."

 _And Mai?_ she wanted to ask, _What's wrong with Mai?_ But if Haru were treating Katara's best friend for some unknown illness - oh, please, she thought, let it be something unknown, let it not be what she feared - then he certainly wasn't going to tell her. Even this far out of civilization, Haru believed in his morals, in the codes laid down by the original healers thousands and thousands of years ago: do no harm, tell no lies, keep your patient's secrets. Although he would give everyone basic reports on the health of someone in the Infirmary, it was only ever the bare minimum, and she knew he didn't like to give even that much.

She swallowed her tea in one lukewarm gulp and stared at the Infirmary like it might have an answer.

She received nothing but silence.


	3. Chapter Two: Out of Gas

In the catacombs of the Fire Nation Palace

Aang squinted as the door opened. He'd only been locked in the little cell for a few hours, and he definitely didn't expect anyone coming to visit him, but, sure enough, there was Azula, leaning against the door, face hidden in shadow.

"Aren't you the Avatar?" she asked finally, and he looked up at her. She sneered. "The bearer of the world spirit, all the power of Earth That Was condensed into a little boy," she said, clicking her tongue and lighting a brilliant blue flame in her palm as the door swung shut behind her. It threw her face into sharp relief, and Aang thought she suddenly looked like a monster, the sort of monster that he used to check under the youngest children's beds for. The memory rose, powerful and unwanted and painful, of the Southern Air Temple, and all the young airbenders, and for a moment, he lost himself in it. Azula's voice wrenched him back to the present. "If you're so powerful," she breathed, sitting against the door, "get out of here. What's stopping you?"

"It doesn't work like that," he replied through gritted teeth, although he had been asking himself the exact same question for several hours.

"Oh?" Azula said, raising an eyebrow. "Then how does it work? Tell me, I'm dying to know."

He clenched his jaw and swallowed the raw pain threatening to overwhelm him, pain that ran deeper than the physical or even emotional. "What are you planning?"

Azula grinned. "Never you mind that," she answered. "I'm beginning to think I won't need your friends after all. They _were_ the perfect scapegoats," she explained off-hand, "but I think I have someone better in mind. Enough about me," she said, voice falsely cheerful, "tell me about you! You're the Avatar! How _exciting._ Do something Avatar-ish," she goaded, grinning.

"Not for you," he replied, and she rolled her eyes.

"Oh, you're no _fun,"_ she huffed, and watched him carefully. "Is that your reasoning?" she asked suddenly. "You won't Avatar me because you consider it beneath you?"

"Avatar is not a verb," he snapped, and the memory of learning English with Katara and Iroh rose up unbidden, a newer pain lancing sharp in his chest.

"Cute," Azula replied, and began playing idly with her blue fire. "I take it from your lack of answer that I struck the mark?" she asked, licking her lips. "Interesting," she mused, "you consider yourself above me?"

"No," he said, sagging against his chains, "I just don't want you to win."

"Oh, come now," she scoffed. "You're the Avatar," she said mockingly, "surely you could defeat some little firebender like me?"

"I wasn't talking about a fight," he snapped, the anger rising, and swallowed it down hard. "You want me to snap," he said, forcing his voice to even out. "So if I do, you win."

Azula smirked, and then shrugged. "Frankly, little Avatar," she said confidentially, "I win whether you do anything or not. Face it, the power of the gods just can't match up to me. Your little friends proved that, didn't they? They had three powerful benders and they still failed. What more can _you_ do?"

It was a question he'd been asking himself, but he refused to let it consume him. Yangchen and Pathik had seemed certain the Avatar State was the key, and when he could control it, he would be able to help his friends overthrow Azula. But how much time did he have left to do it? He didn't even know what Azula was planning, or if Diana could somehow stop it from within - and if not, how he was supposed to do so. "I can stop you," he whispered, more to himself than to her. She laughed.

"Oh, you're adorable," she said mockingly, and rubbed his head with her free hand. "You know," she sighed, as though thinking of it for the first time, "the Parliament likes you, the thought of using you to stop the rebellions on the Outer Rim. How does that sound?"

"How can I stop rebellions if I'm trapped here?" he asked savagely, and she rolled her eyes.

"You're still young, so I'll forgive you for that," she said and then tapped her chin. "All it would take is one speech from you. All you'd have to say is something like," she said airily, and waved her hands expansively, taking on a booming tone to mimic giving a speech, "'People of the Outer Rim, now is the time for peace. I won't support your uprising,' and they'll drop like flies, that's what the Parliament thinks." She then gasped, as though thinking of something all of a sudden. "Or," she added, "they'll rally against you and demand your head for failing them. They _are_ savage like that."

"You don't want that," he said, trying to read through her facade in the flickering light. "You want something else."

She grinned. "Oh, little one," she replied affectionately, "you're smarter than you look. Don't _worry,"_ she said, grinning like a cat, "about my threat back at your ship. Father wants you conscious, you see," she explained, but it somehow failed to give him any comfort. "At least," she added, "for now."

She started to stand up, but he spoke before she could leave. "Azula?" he said, and he felt the power of the world spirit rising up within him, a tense, vicious rage threatening to break free, but he held it back. She turned slightly at the sound of his voice, and he continued. "You have dug your own grave," he told her, and he heard the echo in the room of a thousand voices trying to speak through him.

For a second, her expression flickered from vague amusement to calculating to almost - almost - afraid, and then she hid it all with a laugh and swept out of the room.

* * *

On _Freedom_

They played a subdued game of poker on the last leg of the trip to Pelorum, and for the briefest of moments, Jet could almost forget that Iroh had ever walked on his ship with that box. For that single moment, he wished that none of this had come to him.

But it wasn't in him to chase pipe dreams and what-ifs. Aang had, through the machinations of whatever fate or gods or spirits might exist, come to wake up on his ship, and, in spite of everything, he was fond of the little monkey. His ship felt emptier without the kid skating around on that dumb air scooter or shooting tiny marbles of wind into Bee's hair, and he knew he wasn't the only one feeling the absence. Before, they'd been tense, but it had been a hopeful tension, a tension with purpose.

Now, they were all dejected and quiet and, more than once, he'd caught them (and himself) looking up hopefully at a shift in the air. Even though he knew, consciously, that Aang wasn't ever going to be there, he just... couldn't quite stop hoping.

Finally, he gave up on the game (they were hardly doing more than staring at the cards) and stalked off to roam the halls (again). Maybe he'd check up on Ty Lee, who was still in the Infirmary. She'd woken up the day before, but it was the sort of fevered nightmare of waking that you saw in burn victims sometimes, and it had left them all drained even further. Haru insisted that she was recovering, that he and Katara knew what they were doing, but...

He ran into Mai as she walked out of her shuttle, and for the longest moment, they stood in silence, and then she took a deep breath. "Captain," she said, and he braced himself - he knew that tone of hers, and it was never a good sign. "I was just going to find you."

Was it his imagination, or was her makeup slightly smudged around her eyes, like she'd been crying? He'd never known Mai to _cry,_ though. "Oh?" he asked, leaning against the railing, and she blinked.

"I... wanted to inform you," she began formally, and his stomach suddenly disappeared, "that once we have... saved the Avatar, I will take my leave."

He stared at her - she was _leaving?_ What - _why?_ "Any particular reason?" he asked, forcing his voice to stay even, and something dark passed over her face, but was gone too quickly to read.

"Personal ones," she replied, and made to leave. He stopped her.

"What kind of personal reasons?"

"The kind that are personal," she repeated, but her glare was less ice and more water. Or maybe he was just projecting; it was hard to tell. "How long until we reach Pelorum?"

"About an hour," he answered. "And that wasn't an answer."

She walked away without saying anything more.

* * *

Outside the city of Tianlong on Pelorum

It was night when they landed in a ravine in the wilderness beyond the capital city of the resort planet - they would walk the rest of the (long) way in. Toph supposed that she should have minded, but it seemed like everyone agreed that the long walk through the still, sticky night might be just what they all needed to clear their heads.

Tianlong was familiar to her - at least, parts of it were, since she'd never left her family's estate - and she could feel it sprawling in the distance and even pick out a few details that hadn't changed in the seven years since she'd last been on the resort planet. She'd been fourteen then, and everyone was celebrating the end of the war, but all she'd wanted to do was curl with the badgermoles in the zoo on Ariel and pretend she didn't exist. Officially, Toph had - like the rest of the Bei Fongs - supported unification, but in her heart, she had always understood the yearning for independence.

It was only a couple of years after that, when she'd left her family behind for good. And now, five years after fleeing Ariel on _Freedom,_ she was crawling back to her parents' home, tail between her legs.

Haru had been right to suggest that her family (or at least their bank account) could help them, and he'd been right when he'd told her that she needed to forgive Jet for retreating, but it just - it _hurt._ Aang - cheerful, loyal Aang who had clung to her hand and snapped her out of her depression, who had woken up alone and scared and disoriented but still kept fighting, who had helped her modify Big Bertha and had defended her at the Water Tribe - Aang, who had fought for them even though he barely knew them - Aang, the Avatar and the 'Verse's last hope, was trapped and needed help and she could do nothing about it. And now she was leading her broken comrades into the home she'd fled, the only place they might be safe, and -

And it all just tasted so bitterly like _giving up_.

* * *

Suki leaned heavily on Sokka's shoulder as they limped, together, toward the capital city of Pelorum. Ahead of them, Jet and Haru carried the stretcher with the still-sleeping Ty Lee, while Katara and Mai led the way in on either side of Toph, and Zuko hung toward the back with them; Bee, Longshot, Pipsqueak, and the Duke walked in pairs on either side of the group, weapons at the ready in case they met with Alliance.

If they did, then they were done for, but Suki figured it was better that they at least prepare for that possibility.

They were out of fuel, most of them were bruised and bandaged in at least a few places, and the only food they had left was a single bar of protein - they were practically the walking definition of _ragtag,_ and in the humid, thick night air, it felt like they'd lost the war all over again.

Luckily, the city gates weren't manned - they _were_ locked, but Toph's passcode got them right in, and they made their way through the dark, empty streets. It made Suki sick to see all the riches around them, the lavish spending of the Alliance elite, the way they wasted what they had on themselves while people on the border starved to death daily - and she doubted she was the only one annoyed. Pelorum's capital city should have been awe-inspiring, with its stylishly mock-ancient architecture and wide, glittering white streets, but at the moment, all Suki could think of was the black rock that had once been home.

Toph led them up the largest wrought-iron gate, right around the center of the city, and typed in her passcode on the keypad at the side, letting them into the shadowy front yard.

"Check it out," Sokka said, gesturing to the pillars. "Pigs are flying. Heh."

"The flying boarpig is the symbol of the Bei Fongs," Toph replied distantly, tapping her feet on the ground. It looked suddenly like a huge weight had landed on her shoulders. "I was afraid of this," she muttered, as she keyed in another code at the imposing door and opened it to reveal a dimly-lit foyer. "They're _here."_

Slowly, their whole crew filed into the large entryway, holstering their guns, eyes readjusting to the dim light - and then there was a scream, but it was less of fear and more of joy.

 _"Toph!"_ a woman cried, flying down the main staircase and crashing into the mechanic. "Oh, Toph, my baby, my baby," she whimpered, clutching Toph to her. She looked around at the assembled crew. "You brought her to me! I can't - oh, oh, I thought you were dead," the woman, who Suki now recognized was Toph's mother, sobbed into the mechanic's hair.

"They didn't bring me here, I brought _them_ here," she said tightly, and tried to step out of her mother's grip, but couldn't.

"You came _home!"_ the woman cried, seemingly oblivious to Toph's discomfort. "Lao!" she shouted at the staircase. "Lao, it's Toph!"

A man walked serenely into the foyer, and he was more immediately recognizable - he and Toph shared the same facial structure, the same glittering, pale green eyes. Unlike his wife, he didn't cheer for the return of his daughter. "You saw fit to return to us," he said coldly. "I see you brought trouble."

" _Your daughter is home_ ," Toph's mother hissed.

"My daughter is dead," Lao replied in that same cold voice, then turned on his heel and began to stalk away. "She died five years ago. I will not harbor her ghost."

Toph's mother glared after him, but then turned to them. "Ignore him," she snapped, still clutching Toph, "you're more than welcome to stay."

"We need help," Jet said, and the woman's eyes widened at the sight of Ty Lee. "She's alive, don't worry."

"We're only staying for two weeks," Toph said sharply. "We have something - that we're in the middle of."

"You can't _leave!"_ Toph's mother cried. "It's so dangerous out there! No, you'll stay here with us until we return to Ariel."

"Mother, I'm not abandoning - "

"Listen to me, Toph," she started, voice just this side of menacing, cutting off Toph's protest. Suddenly, it was very, very clear why Toph had joined up with _Freedom._ Luckily, someone else stepped in.

"Lady Bei Fong," Haru said, casually passing the stretcher to Bee and sweeping into a deep bow to kiss the woman's hand. "My name is Doctor Qin, I recently left a post as a trauma surgeon on Persephone to join with the crew that your daughter flies with. I can assure you that if any danger befalls her, I will take care of her." He neglected to mention the javelin, Suki noted, or the paralyzation that Toph had only just started to recover from, or (especially) the role that Katara's healing had played in both of those situations. She glanced to Katara, but the Companion only looked relieved.

"As you've taken care of these women?" Lady Bei Fong asked desperately, gesturing at Suki and Ty Lee, but Haru's expression didn't change.

"My lady, the young woman with the burn would have died without my attention, and the woman with the bandaged leg would not be able to walk. I assure you," he repeated, with just the slightest hint of disdain, "that I am more than capable of taking care of your daughter."

There was something floating under the surface, something that Lady Bei Fong and Haru were both aware of, but escaped the rest of them. "Of course," the Lady replied slowly, and then looked at Toph as though she was seeing her for the first time. "You mean it, don't you?" she asked faintly. "That you're only staying for two weeks?"

"Yes," Toph said firmly.

Lady Bei Fong stared at her for a moment, and then swallowed hard and nodded, seeming to make up her mind in some way. "All right," she breathed, and then looked to the crew. "Come in, let's get you all set up with rooms."


	4. Chapter Three: The Warriors of Kyoshi

In the city of Tianlong on Pelorum

"So," he said, thumbing through brand-new machine parts, already working out the possibilities of killing Lao and marrying his wife for her _obscene_ credit account, "your family is _here._ That's _nice."_

Toph scowled at him - the first thing her mother had made her drop was the visor that she liked to wear, and her unnerving green eyes were painted in a near-constant glare. "What do you suggest I do? I really think she would _actually_ handcuff me to the bed if I tried to defy her. The only reason I can even do anything is 'cause Doctor Fancy sweet-talked her into lunch," she grumbled, although whether she was annoyed at her mother or Haru, it was hard to tell.

"Do I smell jealousy?" Jet asked, peering at a shiny compression coil. "Huh," he said, picking it up. "I never seen one o' these that didn't have the kinks in the coil."

"Ooh, a new compression coil?" Toph gushed, snatching it from him and running her hands over it. "Good, we've been needing one for about _ever."_

"It's not supposed to have those kinks?" he asked dumbly, then shrugged. "Well, you learn somethin' new everyday. So, let's go back to the fact that your very Alliance folks are staying in the same place as the fugitives _who are hiding out from the Alliance_ ," he hissed, crossing his arms. Toph made a face.

"I can't do anything about them - I'd really hoped they wouldn't be here," she said, like it was an apology or explanation. "But you shouldn't worry too much about the feds. If they show up," she explained, voice suddenly pitched lower, "dad'll just pay 'em off. He's done it before, on nastier charges than harboring a fugitive, too."

Jet blinked. "Do I want to know?"

"D'you have any faith left in humanity?"

He considered this. "A little," he replied begrudgingly, wincing, and Toph shook her head.

"Then, no, you really don't want me to tell you. Mom's... mom-ness wasn't the only reason I left, let's just leave it at that. Can you pick up some sheet metal for the hull?" she asked, shifting topics easily as someone passed them. "There's a bunch o' dings."

"Do we really need it?" he countered, crossing his arms. Toph's pile of things _we totally definitely absolutely need for the ship_ was currently larger than her and growing by the second, and she seemed to think that everything in the store was necessary. She huffed.

"Look, we could _fly_ without it, but how many other chances are we gonna have to shop at a legit Core shop with a credit card that has no limit?"

He thought about that for a second - _no_ limit? Hell, he could practically buy a whole new ship with the Bei Fong account, but... but then, it wouldn't be _his_ ship; he hadn't taken any handouts from the Alliance yet, and he wasn't about to start now. What little pride he had left, he was determined to keep. "Just what we need, Tophlet."

* * *

He knew that Suki thought he was crazy, and indeed, was probably wondering what she saw in him, but Sokka _liked_ shopping. Far more than Katara did, in fact. He'd always loved to hang out at the marketplace at home and see what was being sold (and on one memorable occasion, narrowly avoid getting his hand chopped off for stealing a box of fresh strawberries - they were, he maintained to this day, the best thing he had ever eaten) and now, on Pelorum, the playground of the fabulously wealthy, he had discovered how he was going to spend the next two weeks: Pelorum had a _massive_ interplanetary open-air market.

"You do realize how much like a little girl you are, right?" Suki asked, but she was smiling, still leaning heavily on a crutch and poking through the clothing section. "Do we even have the money for this?"

"No, but Toph's parents do," he replied, like it was obvious.

"Okay, do they know we have their card?"

He thought about that for a moment. "Toph _said_ they do," he said finally, "and in the interest of plausible deniability, I didn't ask any questions."

She laughed out loud. "In that case, I think I'm going to splurge."

Sokka glanced at her, glad to hear her laughing. Since Ty Lee's injury, she had been subdued and borderline violent at even the tiniest of infractions - she was overstressed and worried and she wasn't the sort of person who reacted well to feeling either of those things. Part of why he'd dragged her out to shop with him was because she needed to get out of her own head for a while; if there was anything Sokka understood, it was grief and self-loathing - he'd spent seven and a half years courting them while hunting for his sister, after all - and he knew, even if she didn't, that Suki was the last person who should be feeling so. She'd been the first one to the cargo bay to protect Aang, and she'd held off the Operative's men _alone_ while the rest of them scrambled to get their bearings; if anything, she should be proud.

But Suki was a leader to the heart, and Suki took it personally when someone under her command was injured. She hadn't said it in so many words, but he'd read through her lines - Suki had never really gotten over the loss of her other warriors, and Ty Lee was, to her, a sign of hope and starting over, and training Ty Lee was a matter of _honor,_ something she had given up on in the years since the war.

He hated to see it, the way she lashed out at herself. Suki couldn't see what he saw: the beautiful, _incredible_ woman who had held strong through unimaginable suffering and clawed her way out of it - alone, and without even a direction to go or anything to believe in. At least he'd had the promise he'd made to his dead mother to hold him in the black; all Suki had was tenacity and pride.

He was glad to be able to make her smile, to laugh again, even if he wasn't so sure how sincere any of it was. In the interest of getting another laugh (and in the vague hope that she just might agree), he plucked a slinky number from the rack and held it out to her, grinning. "How about you splurge on this?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. She snorted.

"Dream on," she replied, prodding him in the stomach with her crutch, and then limped over to another table, something strange on her face.

"What is it?"

She motioned for him to join her, and he saw what had caught her eye: on the table were a series of metal fans. She looked up at the merchant, an odd light in her eyes. "What type of fans are these? Are they - war fans?" she asked hesitantly, like she almost didn't want to know.

"Yes, my lady," the merchant replied gleefully. "These are traditional _tessen,_ in the style that Yoshitsune favored."

"What about Kyoshi?" she asked eagerly. "Do you have any in Kyoshi's style?"

The merchant smiled. "You are a connoisseur of _tessen?_ Only a true historian would know that Kyoshi's style is stronger than Yoshitsune's."

"I am," she lied, and he hid a smirk. "I was just thinking of buying a pair," she added, and he glanced at her. He'd gone to great lengths to find her a pair of fans on Beaumonde, and then to get them out of Azula's tower, and now she was buying a new pair?

"Ah," the merchant said, motioning for them to follow him around his kiosk, where, against the back wall, a series of boxes were stacked. "I keep them here. They are more expensive and far rarer than the Yoshitsune style, and not many people ask for them. Do you have any preference?"

"Silver," she replied immediately, and glanced at Sokka. _I'll explain later_ , she mouthed, as the merchant began showing her several different designs.

* * *

The Bei Fong estate was practically overrun with spare rooms - they would have been filled with servants, attendants, and guests, but fear of instability and whispers of rebellion had reached the Core following Zhao's defeat and Azula's victory in what was now being determined a "terrorist attack," and Toph's parents had apparently made the same decision they had, to lay low for a while. Katara suspected that Lord Bei Fong had subversive reasons to be off of his home planet - after all, he wasn't exactly known for being the most scrupulous of businessmen - but she hadn't seen him since he'd claimed that his daughter was dead, so she couldn't be sure.

Lady Bei Fong was everywhere, though, flitting around like a hummingbird, desperate to be the perfect host, as though she could somehow, by being extra-welcoming to the crew, convince Toph not to leave.

Katara sighed as she looked through the third empty room, hunting for Mai. The other Companion had been acting more formal than ever lately, and it was almost as though she was going out of her way to avoid Katara. But that didn't make sense - Mai knew that she could trust her with _anything,_ and even though she had never pried into her friend's past, she had to know that there was nothing she could tell Katara that would make her suddenly start hating her.

(There was one possibility, though, that explained everything, but it wasn't something that Katara was ready to face.)

At the fifth room, she struck gold; there was Mai, sitting calmly at the mirror, brushing her hair. Katara tried to smile.

"There you are," she said, relieved, and took a seat on the bed. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

"You have?" Mai asked, voice blank of emotion, which only cemented it to Katara: something was _wrong._ "I apologize."

"You don't have to be so formal with me," she replied, laughing like it was some big joke. "I was just wondering how you were doing."

Mai blinked. "I'm well, thank you. I wasn't seriously injured in the fighting," she added, even though they both knew that wasn't what she'd been talking about. She watched her oldest friend carefully, a deep fear crawling through her gut, one she'd briefly thought of several times before but always brushed off, because why wouldn't Mai have _told_ her if she... It was there, she noticed - had noticed over a week ago, but chose not to see - the ever-so-slight shaking in her hands, the first symptom.

She remembered on Sihnon, the way Mai had almost cried while watching her mother die, the slow degeneration over a decade - a genetic disorder, Katara knew, but a recessive one, and she had thought - no, she had _hoped_ \- that it had somehow skipped over Mai.

The silence stretched thin between them, and they both knew. Finally, Katara swallowed. "How long?" she whispered, and Mai stared at herself in the mirror, refusing to even look at her.

"I don't know what you're asking," she lied, and Katara shook her head.

"Stop lying to me, Mai!" she choked, tears burning in her eyes. "How long do you have left?"

Mai looked away, the brush slipping from her weakening fingers and clattering to the floor. After a long moment, she sighed. "With treatment... maybe nine or ten years."

This just wasn't _fair,_ she thought. It just - Mai deserved _better_ than this end. "What are you going to do about it? Will you return to Sihnon, or stay with the ship?"

"I'm leaving the ship," Mai replied quietly. "I've already told Je - the Captain."

Katara watched her for a long moment, memorizing this scene. Later, she thought, she would want to remember. "Oh, Mai," she sighed, "do you really think he's just going to _let_ you leave?"

She turned to Katara then, face carefully blank. "I rent the shuttle from him on a month-by-month basis. I'm paid through until the end of this month, and then I will leave. He has no reason to hinder me."

She was speaking in the over-formal, stilted tone she used when she was holding back some great emotion. Katara tilted her head - Mai knew about Jet's feelings, and her own for him, although they were both too proud to admit anything - she was simply refusing to accept that Jet might put his heart over his pride. Mai believed firmly in logic and rational thought, but Katara thought that, for all of Mai's intelligence and schooling, she could really be an idiot sometimes.

"Mai, he's not going to sit back and let you go," she said softly. "Stop kidding yourself."

"He will," Mai countered firmly, blankly, forcibly, "when our business contract is terminated, I will have no reason to remain."

It was obvious that even Mai didn't believe the lie, but at the same time, Mai _had_ to believe it; it wasn't in her to accept that someone might love her, want her near, enjoy her company. In order to maintain her facade of utter carelessness, she had to believe that everyone was as unfeeling as she tried to be.

There was a reason that Mai was a good Companion: men found her alluring, a nut they desperately wanted to crack - all of Mai's clients hoped to be the one to make her break her own rules. It was ironic - and at the same time, completely natural - that the one man who actually could was also one of the only men who would rather die than buy even a minute of her time.

"You _have_ to tell him," Katara breathed, and Mai turned sharply.

"I have no obligation to him," she countered, and Katara shook her head.

"Stop lying," she replied, shaking, aware that she was stepping far over the careful boundaries that Mai kept in place - betraying Mai's hard-given trust to save her. It stung Katara deep inside. "If you don't tell him," Katara whispered, willing herself not to cry, " _I_ will."

* * *

Suki was there when Ty Lee woke up - and really woke up this time, not the feverish nightmare of waking she'd gone through on the ship - sitting calmly next to the bed.

"Where am I?" she croaked, wincing as she tried to move, and Suki held out a hand to stop her.

"Pelorum," she replied. "We're at Toph's family's estate. Don't try to move, you're still in pretty bad shape."

Ty Lee reached out and touched the bandages on her stomach gingerly, then glanced at Suki. "How bad is it?" she whispered, looking confused and scared. "Why Pelorum? We did - we got Aang, right?" she asked, and Suki looked away. There was a moment of silence, and then Ty Lee swallowed loudly. "We're gonna try again, right?"

"Of course," Suki replied, taking Ty Lee's hand. It was hard to believe that merely three months ago, she had wanted to _kill_ the ditzy gymnast. "Your abdomen's still burnt pretty bad, but Katara's been healing it twice a day, and... well, she says it'll scar, but it shouldn't be too bad in the long run. Ty Lee..." she said, looking anywhere but the bandages, "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I - "

"What?" Ty Lee snapped, and she bowed her head, waiting for the onslaught. It didn't come. "What are you sorry for?" Ty Lee asked instead, clutching her hand tightly.

"I should have been there - it should have been me."

"Ha!" Ty Lee barked, and Suki looked up; she was crying, but also laughing weakly. Trust Ty Lee to laugh in the face of her latest failure. "But it wasn't, okay? I don't regret anything."

Suki swallowed hard and turned to the box she and Sokka had picked up in Pelorum's marketplace, the reason she had been waiting by Ty Lee's bed for hours now. "I..." she started, feeling slightly stupid, "I got these... in case... if you still want..." she choked, and then gave up on talking altogether and opened the box to show Ty Lee the pair of shining silver fans with lotus decorations cut out of them. The decorations were half for aesthetics and half for deception: they were still razor-sharp, intended for war, not show. "It was - it _is_ \- my job as the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors to ensure that every member has her own personal set of fans. I... I got these... for you, if you... if you're still in. I understand," she said suddenly, startled at how emotional this was for her, "if you don't want to. But... I thought..."

"They're really pretty," Ty Lee cooed, picking them up carefully and inspecting them, then gave Suki an almost patronizing look. "Of course I'm still _in,"_ she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"You're sure?" Suki gushed, excited and eager and scared. "I thought - well, you got hurt pretty bad, but I can teach you - _tessenjutsu_ was designed to fend off benders, so I was thinking I could teach you how to use them to dodge fire - but - you're sure?" she finished lamely, and Ty Lee bit her lip.

"You wanna know a secret?" she asked, and tried to sit up on the soft bed. "I've never been a part of something, ever. I was just some noblewoman's sixth daughter and then I tried to be a famous gymnast - but that didn't work, and then I tried to be a Companion, but..." she trailed off, caressing the silver fans reverently. "I've never felt like I had a purpose, you know? But," she winced, and Suki tried to get her to lay back down, but she refused, grabbing her by the hand and looking her straight in the eyes, "the Kyoshi Warriors are really, really important. I am honored," she said seriously, more seriously than Suki had ever seen her, "to be a member."

Suki blinked back tears - she had been so afraid that her dream had fallen with Ty Lee, that she had failed (again) to keep the ancient band of warriors alive. "It's just you and me, right now," she said, swallowing the lump in her throat. "And neither of us are exactly shipshape."

"We will be," Ty Lee replied confidently, like she wasn't half-burned and Suki could walk without help. "And it won't be just us, not for long. I can _feel_ it," she said, smiling. "The Kyoshi Warriors will return."

Suki looked at her - looked through her - and remembered: there was On Ji, playing with her first pair of tin fans, and there was Meng, asking her to please go over that kata again, and there was Kai, shredding a bamboo sword, and there was Koko, always tripping over her feet and always getting up again, and there was Ling, bowing to her and handing over the headdress of leadership, and there was - she looked at Ty Lee and saw all of her now-dead warriors represented in the acrobat's wide, gray eyes. Even after her failures, even after Shadow, even after she abandoned her roots and became a secretary, even after the years of nightmares where she saw the dust of her home and the glowering form of a long-dead Avatar spitting hatred at her for breaking the sacred line... even after everything, Ty Lee had _faith_ in her.

She tried to say something - _thank you_ or _of course they will_ or _please don't trust me with this_ \- but she found that she couldn't speak.

Ty Lee smiled, understanding in her eyes.


	5. Chapter Four: The Mentor

In the catacombs of the Fire Nation Palace

It had taken Aang a while to adjust to the darkness of his cell, and then to the inability to move most of his body - but it didn't take long for the despair to set in. Diana was working on getting him out, but except for Azula's one visit, he hadn't seen or heard anything in the days - weeks? - since he'd been shoved in the cell, and he was starting to get delirious from hunger. Several times, he had imagined Monk Gyatso in the cell with him, cursing him for running away, or else it was Guru Pathik calling him a failure, or Avatar Yangchen telling him that he wasn't worthy of holding her sacred title.

So, he fled, in the only way he still knew how, to the spirit world - unfortunately, he was still in the catacombs of the palace, looking at his small, glowing body. How was he supposed to save a whole solar system? He couldn't even let go of his fear.

"Avatar Aang," an imposing voice said, and he looked up to see a tall, frightening woman glowing blue like Yangchen and Roku had, dressed in armor that was ancient by his standards, with a pair of fans at her hip.

"Avatar Kyoshi," he replied reverently, thinking of Suki practicing with her fans. "I... I'm sorry," feeling like he had to apologize to someone for what had happened.

The Earth Avatar merely raised an eyebrow and began to walk. He followed her as she walked up through the empty halls of the Fire Nation palace and out into the open air, then stepped off the planet and led him to another, a dead rock filled with ruins. "The settlers who lived here were descended from the Earth Kingdom," she said simply. "Shadow - the last stand of the Kyoshi Warriors." She spoke like a great weight was hanging in her words, like there was something important here that she was trying to show him, and Aang shook his head.

"The Kyoshi Warriors aren't gone," he said firmly, and Kyoshi shook her head.

"They died on this planet, Avatar Aang," she countered, and then, with just a hint of sorrow, "I watched them."

"The leader is still alive," he replied fervently, and she turned sharply. "I know her. She's starting them back up - not here, because, well," he said, biting his lip and looking around at the black rock, "but she's already got one recruit, and she's planning to bring more in. She's an expert with the fans, it's really cool."

"Suki," Kyoshi said, as though remembering, "I thought she died with On Ji."

Aang didn't know who On Ji was, but he could guess - Shadow was still littered with windswept skeletons, and he suspected that On Ji was among them somewhere. "She didn't," he said, and when Kyoshi looked at him again, her eyes were bright.

"Suki," she said quietly, almost like the name was a talisman, and nodded, turning sharply away from the skeletons, now all business. "I found you for a reason, Avatar Aang."

"Yes?" he asked, although he thought he already knew.

"You must learn earthbending, and soon. I can show you some of the katas, but you will have to practice on your own, on the other side."

"How?" he asked, sighing, feeling like his spirit was bowing under the weight. "I'm chained up in a cell."

"Can you touch the ground?" Kyoshi asked, and then went on without waiting for an answer. "Then you can earthbend. Earth is the natural opposite of air, and it will be the most difficult for you, as air was for me," she explained, walking away from the dead planet with purpose, and he struggled to keep up with her pace. "It shares some similarities with waterbending, in that it requires empathy - you must _listen_ to the earth, Avatar Aang. It has its own song, and it will show you the way if you let it. However, it will also hinder you at all points, so you must be rooted, _firm_ in your decisions, and willful."

"How do I do that?" he asked, tripping over his feet as Kyoshi walked onto another planet. This one was more metropolitan, with towering cities apparently empty of people, although Kyoshi seemed to see them. Maybe when he was actually dead, he would be able to see the living people - and then he wondered if Kyoshi could see the other spirits, those of the dead.

"The answer is no," she said suddenly, apparently out of the blue, and then glanced at him. "I wondered the same thing, when Kuruk was my mentor. I cannot see the dead, as you cannot see the living."

"Oh," he replied dumbly, and Kyoshi continued on her single-minded search.

"You will learn to earthbend through practice and meditation, the same way you are learning waterbending and the same way you learned airbending. I am confident that you will succeed," she told him, and then raised a painted eyebrow. "I am teaching you this now because you are struggling with the base chakra. Earthbending will help you let go of fear - it is the element of confidence and strength."

"Knowing bending will help me unlock my chakras?" he asked, blinking, and then realized that it made quite a lot of sense. "I never thought of it that way..." he mused. Kyoshi gave him a small, tight-lipped smile, but didn't stop in her search - she led him into a large estate with statues of flying boarpigs on the gate, and through the winding halls, until they came to a room.

She stood in silence then, watching whatever the living people were doing within, and when she looked to him again, she smiled genuinely. "You are right, Avatar Aang," she whispered. "My people survive." She reached out as though to touch someone, and then let out a deep breath as though she'd been holding it for a very long time, had been waiting for something. "My people..." she repeated, looking gentler and calmer than ever.

When Aang opened his eyes, back in his cell, he felt the strangest sense of _serenity,_ like the pieces were all falling into place.

He was glad for the sense of calm in the next moment, when the door swung open to reveal Azula, silhouetted against the bright light outside of his cell. She was smiling, twirling the key between her long fingers.

"Good evening, Avatar," she said, "we're going for a walk."

* * *

On _Freedom_

Toph was busy fixing the compression coil - finally - when she felt the ships land at the dock about a quarter-mile away. Normally, that wouldn't bother her, but there was something about the cadence of their engines that she could feel through the ground between them that hit upon something in her memory.

" _Shèng mu de shàng dì bìng jiē zhī fā kuáng shēng_ ," she breathed, and hit the intercom. "Jet, we've got Alliance troops."

She bolted immediately from the engine room, wiping her hands on her pants as she went, and crashed into Jet as he also made for the cargo bay. "Alliance? You sure?" he asked, scrambling to get down the stairs, Toph hot on his heels.

"Positive. They touched down a quarter of a mile from us, lots and lots of troops."

"Okay," he said, opening the cargo bay doors. "Well, we can't run and you and me sure as hell can't fight 'em off. Tell me your crazy mother taught you diplomacy."

Toph laughed a little desperately. "I never listened."

"Then make shit up," he said, pulling a pair of chairs out and setting them on either side of the cargo bay, then pulling out a cigarette and lighting it, casually lounging in the other chair. "Sit, Toph, play like we're supposed to be here."

She plopped into the chair opposite him, making a concerted effort to refrain from shaking the whole ship out of nerves. "I thought you quit?" she asked, and she felt him shift awkwardly.

"Yeah, well, I suck at quitting," he growled. "Well, hello," he called to the Alliance officers, as though just noticing them for the first time. "What can I do for you?"

"Is this the _Freedom?"_ the fed asked, with no small amount of disdain, and she heard Jet take a long drag on his cigarette.

"Nope, this ship's called the Shera, after my lovely wife here," he said, indicating to Toph, who narrowly managed to avoid opening a hole in the ground to swallow her up. Instead, she giggled like a school-girl.

"My Cid is so sweet like that," she cooed, and then turned her sightless eyes onto the Alliance men. "Is something the matter?"

"A Firefly by the name of _Freedom_ was reported to be docked near here," the man replied suspiciously. "The people onboard are extremely dangerous."

Toph gasped theatrically. "I haven't heard anything about dangerous people around! Cid, you said that Pelorum would be safe," she said accusingly, glaring at Jet and, for the very first time, happy that she wasn't wearing the visor so she could pretend to be sighted. It could be written off as coincidence that there were two Fireflies docked in the area, but she doubted that they would so easily write off two blind mechanics servicing two distinct Fireflies docked in the area.

"I thought it would!" he spluttered. "What have these people done?" he asked the Alliance man, sounding for all the world like he was filled with righteous anger. "Don't tell me they have something to do with this Independent uprising I keep hearing news of?"

"They do," the Alliance man replied, somewhat mollified by their outrage.

"Ugh," Toph huffed, "All I wanted was to get _away_ for a while. Why does trouble follow you?" she snapped at Jet, and she felt him turn to her, probably glaring.

"Maybe it follows _you,_ sweetie," he replied sarcastically. _"You're_ the one who suggested we fly off to Pelorum for vacation. I told you we should have gone to Londinium instead."

"Oh, please," she countered, "Londinium is full of ponces and thieves! I rather prefer my wallet on my person, thank you kindly, _honey."_

"What is your last name?" the Alliance man asked, cutting into their dramatic argument. "For bookkeeping, you understand," he said, but Toph knew better - he was checking out their story.

"Highwind," he replied. "Cid and Shera, you can look us up."

He spoke with such confidence that she almost wondered if he really _did_ know someone by that name, and it seemed to be enough for the Alliance man - at least, for now. "Well, Mr. and Mrs. Highwind, I apologize for bothering you," the fed said, bowing, and then turned on his heel and left, followed by his men.

"Okay," Toph hissed, as soon as they were gone, "once they get back on their ship, they're gonna realize that we lied to them. What then?"

"I'm thinking," Jet replied, punching the buttons to close the cargo bay and bolting through the ship until he reached the bridge. "First things first, we run like rabbits. They'll think we were trying to get away from the devilishly handsome captain of that other Firefly." She rolled her eyes, but didn't comment.

"What about our pulse beacon? Won't they follow it to the ship?" she asked, joining him behind the helm. He held up a metal contraption and she felt him grin. "You keep our pulse beacon on you?"

"Yeah," he replied smugly, "that way, the ship's safe even when I'm not on it. I'm thinking that the second I land her, we go far away and dump it in a hole. Advice from an old tracker," he continued, sounding insufferably pompous, "you wanna find someone? Use your eyes. Or, well," he added, "feet, in your case."

"What if someone tried to blow up the ship by tracking the navsat while you had it on you?" she asked, hands on her hips, and Jet shrugged as he pulled the ship into the air.

"Then they blow me up, and my crew is still safe."

She blinked; she had never known that Jet was that serious about taking care of his crew. He obviously took their well-being personally and took it upon himself to ensure that they had food to eat and got paid for their work, but to put himself at constant risk - just for the tiniest assurance that they would be all right... "You're a good leader," she said abruptly, and felt him turn.

"Huh?" he asked dumbly, no doubt surprised to hear a compliment from her. She nodded.

"You care about us so much..."

He shrugged. "I'm the Captain," he replied, like it was an explanation. "That's what I do."

* * *

At the Bei Fong estate in Tianlong

Mai was steadily becoming more and more impressed with Toph's mother.

"You are _not_ allowed into my house," the woman said, voice like steel. The Alliance officer scowled.

"Poppy Bei Fong, your daughter is wanted in connection to an attack upon the princess of the Fire Nation earlier this week. We must search the premises, and if you stop us, you will be held under obstruction of justice."

Poppy Bei Fong, however, was not a woman to be taken lightly. "You are bound by the law," she replied, "that states that you cannot break into a citizen's home without justification. You have no evidence to suggest that my daughter is here, nor that she was involved in the attack upon the princess's ship. All you know is that a blind earthbender fitting only the most vague descriptions of a woman who visited here seven years ago was involved in the attack - nothing suggests that the woman involved was of any relation to me, nor that this woman would have any cause to be here. My daughter disappeared five years ago, and I gave the Alliance a complete profile of her in the missing person's report - you will find quite a few immediate differences between her and the woman you seek. You are not welcome in my home. _Goodbye."_

It was clear to see where Toph had inherited her stubbornness from - even the Alliance officer didn't dare cross Poppy. When the woman slammed the door in the fed's face, Mai stepped forward.

"I'm impressed," Mai said quietly. "Not many people could have done that."

Poppy took a deep breath, a very familiar mulish expression on her face. "No matter what she may think of me," she said in a low voice, "Toph is my _daughter,_ and I _will_ protect her."

"I understand," Mai said, crossing her arms. "But that will only hold them off for a while. They'll return with a search warrant."

"At which point, all of you will be on your ship," Poppy explained. "I'll let you know when it's safe to return. Go, get the others."

* * *

"Wait," Toph said, leading the group to where Jet had hidden the ship, "my _mother_ bitched out a fed, and I _missed_ it?"


	6. Chapter Five: Ozai and the Fire Lord

On _Freedom_

Katara held the handle of the teapot between her fingers. She'd meant to pour it into the cup, but she stalled halfway through the movement as the sudden wash of sorrow hit her like a wave - Mai was _dying._ She'd known it before, but it hadn't sunk in until that very moment.

She felt sick.

"Are you all right?" someone said, and she whirled around, the teapot falling from her hands, and, without thinking, she bent the tea within to catch it and bring it back to her, the same way she bent blood in the body to stop it from moving - she blinked back the memory, the _feeling,_ and looked up to see Zuko, watching her with his face carefully blank.

"I'm - yes," she replied awkwardly, and then decided to hope for the best, that he had come into the dining room to see her. "Would you like to share a pot?"

Something flickered over his face, but she couldn't tell what, and then he shook his head. "No, I was just..." he started, and then looked away.

"What's wrong?" she asked suddenly, and he turned back to her. Before he could deny that something was wrong, she continued. "You're so distant, you've been avoiding me, you don't talk to anyone anymore, you're brooding all the time... what's going on?"

"Nothing's going on," he replied tersely, and began to stalk out of the room, but she caught him by the arm, looking at him imploringly.

"You can talk to me," she said quietly. "I know you're stressed about Aang, and... and your sister. I - don't push me away," she said softly, but his expression was closed off entirely, and she knew that was exactly what he was doing. Without another word, he shrugged away from her and walked away, leaving her alone in the dining room with a pot of tea she really didn't want, feeling like the only two people who had ever really understood her were gone from her life forever.

"What's in the teapot?" Jet asked, bounding in from the bridge, and then seemed to catch onto the tension. "What did I just interrupt?"

"Nothing," she whispered, and it was more true than he knew. She took a deep breath, drawing back on her Companion training. She'd always known that Zuko was just a passing figure in her life - although he had talked big sometimes, about taking her away from the life she'd fallen into, although she had often wished he might do just that... she'd always known. At the bottom of things, she could dress herself up in makeup and society and rich clothes, but to him, she was still just a _whore._

She shook her head to clear it and turned to Jet. "Have you spoken with Mai?" she asked quietly, and he raised an eyebrow.

"Should I?" he asked, and Katara sighed.

Even though Katara had told Mai that if she didn't tell Jet her secret, she would... she just _couldn't,_ not now. The reality was still too raw to face, and she wasn't sure she even could betray Mai, even if it was to help her. "Never mind," she replied, and walked away.

* * *

At the Fire Nation Palace

Aang hesitated, but Azula pushed him forward, her long, red fingernails digging into his shoulder. She had brought him to a lavishly decorated dining hall, with a veritable feast set out for him, and the only other person in the room was Fire Lord Ozai.

Aang wasn't stupid enough to take any of it on face value.

His mind raced as Azula directed him to a seat at the Fire Lord's left hand and took the one opposite of him - she couldn't afford to kill him, that much he knew, so the food _probably_ wasn't poisoned. Then why the feast? Did she think that the way to get him to turn his back on everything he believed in was by feeding him well?

"Eat, Avatar," the Fire Lord said, "it isn't poisoned."

"I don't eat meat," he replied, a little desperately, and Ozai clapped once, eyes never leaving Aang's face. A servant appeared in front of them.

"The Avatar does not eat meat," Ozai said calmly. "See to it that he receives a proper vegetarian meal."

"Yes, my lord," the servant replied hastily, bowing and sweeping out of the room. Within five minutes, a full plate of vegetables was in front of him, and he couldn't _not_ eat it; it wasn't that he suddenly decided to trust them, but he hadn't eaten in days, and it had been two months of soft protein before that, and he didn't _think_ there was any kind of poison they could put on his food to make him go back into cold sleep. He noticed, dimly, that both of them waited for him to take the first bite before they began to eat their food.

They were treating him like a favored guest. It was downright creepy. "Not that I'm not... grateful," he began hesitantly, "but why the feast?"

"Are you not hungry?" Ozai asked. "You've been in that cell for a while. I thought it might be prudent to allow you some measure of freedom."

Aang caught the sideways glance that Azula shot her father, unnoticed by the Fire Lord - for a split second, the princess's face seethed with rage, but then it was gone as fast as it had appeared, and she smiled beatifically at her father. "You're very wise, Father. The Avatar could be a powerful ally for us."

Ozai's face flickered then, and Aang's head hurt - the two royals were playing on opposite sides of each other, it was clear, but he had no idea what those sides were. Who wanted him as an ally, and who wanted him out of the way? His gut said that Azula was trouble, but he somehow doubted that meant he could trust Ozai. "Politics have no place at the dinner table, Azula," he said tersely, and Azula bowed her head.

"My apologies, Father," she replied immediately, sounding so absolutely sincere that he almost doubted his own intuition about her. "I am simply eager to speak to the Avatar about... our plans."

"They can wait," Ozai said calmly, apparently oblivious to Azula's simmering fury. Did he honestly not know? Then again, he thought, he was only truly aware of her feelings because he was aware of the water in her body, the blood pounding in her veins - perhaps Ozai really thought his daughter was sitting perfectly under his thumb. "So," Ozai began suddenly, "Avatar. Tell us about the world you left behind. My historical learning is somewhat... spotty in places," he said, smiling a bit, "you understand."

"I..." he started, and took a large bite of potato to hide his nerves and just how out of his depth he was in the dagger-like politics that Ozai and Azula played. He was more used to taking care of restless airbenders and trading goods with strangers than this sort of thing - Monk Gyatso had always said that his strength was in his friendliness, his openness, that he didn't have a deceitful bone in his body. All of those had sounded like virtues when he was traveling around his world as a nomad, but now they all sounded like curses. "I was an Air Nomad," he said, "before."

"Before Sozin I eradicated them?" Ozai asked, and Aang blinked several times in quick succession, the words slowly filtering down through the haze of shock.

Sozin was the Fire Lord in his time. Sozin had been Avatar Roku's closest friend. Sozin had _eradicated his people?_

His blood ran cold for an instant, then boiling hot. No, he thought, clamping down on the rage and the chaos and the noise, a thousand lifetimes rising up within him, all screaming for vengeance.

He'd thought - well, the Earth Kingdom was gone, he had thought that the Air Nomads had just... dissolved like the Earth Kingdom had, over the centuries he'd been in cold sleep. And Ty Lee - he'd been so sure that Ty Lee was of Air Nomad descent, the way she moved and her gray eyes and - he'd thought - he'd never - _no,_ he told himself, screamed at himself, and swallowed hard. Ozai wanted him to lose control, to, as Azula had taunted him, _glow_ \- and he wasn't about to give him the satisfaction.

"Yes," he replied through clenched teeth, "I was."

"How did he do it?" Azula asked innocently. "Sozin I, I mean. My history tutor said it happened very quickly."

"It did," Ozai replied, still watching Aang like a hawk. Savagely, he speared an unfamiliar green vegetable and stuffed in his mouth, but it tasted like ash. "He used a comet that was known in the time to enhance the power of firebenders. He killed them all in a few hours. That was very shortly after the Avatar's mysterious disappearance."

Aang's blood pounded in his ears. There was only thing that would infuriate them more than if he let the anger win - if he didn't. They wanted him to snap, so they could show the world that he was a savage, a relic from a rightfully dead past - that was what Ozai wanted, why he didn't put him back into cold sleep immediately. He made up his mind right then: he would not lash out at Ozai or Azula. Doing so would only let them win, and he would never let them win.

"Yes," Azula purred, leaning on her hand. "Legend claims that the Avatar could have saved them, but he was gone."

He swallowed again, and he could almost hear Monk Gyatso's voice - _do not listen to them_. He focused on the thought of his mentor; Yangchen had said that the Avatar's teachers were all the same set of spirits, those who had followed him throughout history and had never left him alone. Who, he wondered, was Monk Gyatso? He thought it might be Katara, the ever-warm, ever-kind woman who had held him while he'd raged. And perhaps that meant that some of his friends, the ones from the temple, perhaps they were still around too - maybe they were Toph or Mai or Ty Lee.

He focused on the thought because it was the only thing that broke through the white noise ringing in his ears.

"You seem tense, Avatar," Ozai said, annoyed, and Aang bit back a cynical smirk. Ozai was getting angry because he wasn't getting the "glow" he expected; the knowledge allowed him a firmer grip on the anger, kept it in check. As long as he kept it under control, he was winning the Fire Lord's game.

"Maybe you should give me a massage," he replied, grinning innocently and thinking of what Toph would say in this situation. "I've heard that firebenders give excellent massages. Azula, I'd love to get one from you." The sudden recoil on her face was enough to make it all worth it. Ozai laughed loudly, an insincere attempt at one of Iroh's genuine belly laughs.

"I'm afraid that I'm untrained in massage therapy," Azula replied coldly.

"Darn," he said, eyes locked on Azula's, and took a large bite of potato.

* * *

On _Freedom_

Jet was busy replacing some of the older parts of the helm when he heard the static crackle. He jumped, knocking his head against the metal control panel, and then pulled himself out from under it, cursing.

"Jet," his cortex was saying, "Sokka! Someone!"

"I'm here," he said, scowling, and was surprised to see - of all people - Diana looking back at him. "I thought you were dead," he said bluntly, and she shook her head.

"I'm at the Fire Nation palace, I'm posing as one of Azula's soldiers. I have to be quick," she said desperately, looking around like she was _terrified._ "You have to come to Sihnon, now. They're keeping Aang in the holding cell of the catacombs underneath the palace. Azula has the only key, I can't get it from her."

"Okay," he replied, still somewhat confused, "we're working on fixing up the ship and waiting for the air to clear some - "

"You don't have time," Diana said sharply.

"They won't kill him," he said, but it was more of a question. Diana shook her head.

"It's not Aang - listen to me, in the records room of the palace, there is a message. It's protected by the tightest security possible, but I managed to break into it. You'll need to use Zuko's passcode to get to the list, and then this passcode to see the message, write it down: G23PX11784M. That'll get you in to see it."

"What's in this message?" he asked, scribbling the passcode on a scrap of paper, and Diana shook her head, face unusually pale.

"I can't tell you, but Azula's gonna use it on St. Albans. You have to stop her," she said fervently, then looked behind her and leaned in. "Delete this message," she snapped, and then cut the 'wave. He sat back in his chair for a moment, and then deleted the 'wave like she had asked, before hitting the intercom and calling his crew into the bridge.

"What's up?" Toph asked, bouncing into the seat at the other station. He waited in silence while the rest of his crew filed in, all looking confused.

"I just got a message from Diana," he said gravely. "She gave me Aang's location and the passcode to a message in the records room of the palace. She says it's a big deal, something Azula's planning to use on St. Albans."

"What's in the message?" Bee asked, and he shook his head.

"She wouldn't say," he replied. "Tophlet, how's the ship?"

"Just about repaired," she answered immediately, sitting up. "You're afraid," she said slowly, reading his feelings through his pulse. He nodded slowly.

"The way she was talkin'," he muttered, and then shook his head. "How long till we can fly?"

"Give me two hours," Toph replied.

"Good," he said, leaning on his hand. "How do we get into Sihnon?"

"I thought we were going to wait," Suki asked, leaning against the other station with her crutch, "until the air cleared some?"

Jet shook his head. "Diana says we don't have time. Whatever Azula's plannin', it's _big._ We need a way to get into Sihnon without being swarmed by Alliance. Any suggestions?"

After a moment of silence, Sokka held up a hand. "I know someone who works in the underground drug rings," he said. "Powerful woman. I don't know if she will help us, but she's probably the only person who _can."_

"Are you talking about Jun?" Katara asked, and Sokka nodded.

"I had to deal with her, just before I went to the Companion House to find you. She's got the power to protect us."

Jet stood up, and indicated to the station. "Call her. Everyone else, start packing. As soon as Toph has us ready to leave, we leave."

* * *

Sokka tapped his foot impatiently as the 'wave loaded. Dealing with Jun was dangerous, but they were officially out of options, and Azula was planning something for his home and - desperate times required desperate measures.

"Sokka Nerrevik," the beautiful dark-haired woman said, lounging at her desk with a cup of sake in her hand. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"I need help," he replied immediately, and Jun raised an eyebrow.

"What kind of help?" she asked calmly. He took a deep breath.

"I need to get into Sihnon, without the Alliance knowing I'm there. I'm requesting sanctuary," he added, fear rising in his gut without a concrete reason for it - he had a bad feeling about Diana's message.

"Are you offering me something in exchange?" she asked, sipping her drink, and he shook his head.

"I don't have anything to offer," he started, and she cut him off.

"Are you about to try blackmailing me into helping you?" she asked sardonically. "Because I can assure you, that will _not_ work."

"No," he replied firmly, a cold knot of dread falling hard into his stomach. "I don't have anything to offer and I'm not going to blackmail you or try to bribe you. I need help, and you're the only person who can help me. _Please_ \- the fate of the 'Verse is at stake here."

She laughed darkly at him. "Does this have anything to do with the little Avatar that the princess has been crowing about?"

"Yes," he replied. "I'm going to save him."

"Give me one reason to help you," she said, amusement fading from her face, and he looked at her, straight in the eyes.

"Because Azula's going to do something horrible to my home planet," he answered quietly, "and I don't know exactly what, but I have to stop her, and Aang - the Avatar - is the only person who can."

Jun watched him carefully for a long moment, and then drained her cup of sake. "I respect your honesty," she said sincerely, and then nodded. "I can give you three days of sanctuary," she said shortly. "After that you're on your own." She cut the wave, and Sokka leaned back in the seat, relieved beyond what words could express. He hit the intercom's open all button.

"She's giving us three days of sanctuary," he said to the whole ship. "That enough?"

"It'll have to be," Jet replied, as he returned to the bridge. "Go, finish packing," he snapped.

Katara caught him as he flew for the door, his bags in her hands. "I got yours," she said, handing them to him, and he grinned.

"Thanks."

"Sokka, are you sure we can trust Jun? I've heard stories about her..."

"And I've worked with her," he countered, shouldering his bags and making for the passenger dorms. "She's as blunt as they come - when she says she'll give us sanctuary, she means it. I wouldn't put it past her to sell us out the _moment_ our three days are up, but _during_ those three days, we'll be safe. Jun's a woman of her word."

* * *

Toph had finished fixing the engine, and everything was ready - so, why, she wondered vaguely, was she roaming the halls of her parents' estate, hunting for her mother? The last time she'd left, she'd hardly said goodbye.

But her mother had gone out on that limb for her, had stared down the Alliance, had countered her father, had _cared_ so much...

Her mother deserved this much.

She found Poppy Bei Fong in her drawing room, working on finances. "Toph!" she cried, and Toph felt her heartbeat pick up. "You're leaving," she said blankly, as she took in Toph's appearance and expression. She nodded, then took a deep breath and removed her visor, handing it over.

"This is, like, my favorite part of this whole get-up," she said, gesturing to her outfit, and she shook it out. "Take it, Mom."

"I don't..." her mother began faintly, taking the visor from her. "I thought you were staying another week. I... what's happening?"

"Something came up," she said shortly, and then took another deep breath - why was this so hard? "We've gotta go rescue the Avatar and save the whole 'Verse from a crazy megalomaniac princess. But I - um," she said hesitantly, and then just dove in, "I wanted you to have that, so... it's a promise," she said finally, "I gotta come back for it, you know? So, that's... I'm gonna come back. I'm not gonna _stay,"_ she added hastily. "I mean, don't get me wrong, but I'm no socialite and the ship is my home now, I just..."

"I understand," her mother said quietly, and pulled her into a tight hug. Toph's throat burned. "You come back in one piece, okay?" she breathed shakily, and then pulled her away at arms length to look at her, brushing the hair out of her eyes. "I'll speak to your father. He's just... your running away wounded his pride," she explained warmly. "He _does_ love you."

"Mom?" she said quietly, biting her lip. "I'm sorry. For... everything."

"So am I, _bao bèi_ ," Poppy whispered, and then pushed her away, like it was a huge effort to let go, to keep from grabbing her and locking her up in a room where she could be sure that Toph would always be safe. Her fingers lingered on Toph's back for just a second longer than they had to. "Go, do what you have to do," she said firmly. "I am _so_ proud of you."


	7. Chapter Six: The Shirxiu's Nest

_part two_  
At the Fire Nation Palace

Azula stood very, very still at her father's right hand while he proposed _her_ plan to the Parliament as his own - very still and very _angry,_ but she'd learned at a young age that anger was only valuable if it could be controlled, and control was Azula's strongest ally. The Parliament were surprised and horrified at the proposition, but they were also desperate and terrified of fighting another expensive, unpopular war to bring the Outer Rim to heel. Azula's plan would work if they chose to go forward with it, but they feared the criticism that would come from all ends of the system if they did.

She had a contingency plan, however, for all of this, for the Parliament and for her father's meddling and even for the fallout that was coming - and the time for it to come into play was drawing near.

Azula looked at Ozai and smiled.

* * *

It took a lot of concentration for him to not struggle against the chains. He had gone to the spirit world after Azula's dinner and allowed himself to panic there, but Kyoshi had found him and more or less slapped him into shape - after all, she understood what it was like to watch her entire race die, she knew what he was feeling. She insisted that he focus on learning the first parts of earthbending, that they would help him immeasurably.

He wished that she had taught him a kata, or a few tricks, or maybe something about _breaking out of metal chains before Azula destroyed the entire solar system_.

Not that he was antsy, or anything.

Okay, he thought, breathe _in_ the air and breathe _out_ the earth - Kyoshi's words. She had told him that earthbending was less a martial art and more a state of mind; while there were moves involved that would greatly increase his power, the real strength of earthbending lay in the bender's willpower and consciousness. He would have to sink his thoughts into the ground and feel the way the rocks and the ore and the dust and the soil all came together. Awareness was key.

He closed his eyes - for some reason, blinding himself made it easier to feel the earth, and he thought that was probably why Toph was so naturally gifted - and leaned heavily against the wall and the floor he was sprawled against, trying to sink his consciousness into the rock beneath and around the metal of his cell.

All he felt was cold.

* * *

On _Freedom_

Zuko watched her carefully out of periphery - he didn't dare turn.

She was having _tea._ With _Jet._

The... _man_ was drinking out of his teacup. Zuko tried not to fly off the handle in a jealous rage: it was, after all, just a teacup, and he'd blown her off the last time she'd offer to share a pot of tea with him, and it wasn't like that was _actually_ his teacup (it was just the one that he _always_ drank from) and so what if the scruffy captain was flirting with Katara?

He could probably convince Mai to help him turn the tables on them. The only problem was, he didn't really want to. What he wanted was to be in Jet's place, taking tea with the beautiful Companion and pretending that this wasn't all his fault.

Katara deserved _better_ than him; she deserved someone who would understand her job and her life, who wouldn't try to hinder her independence, who wasn't - _him._ He was obsessive and tended to get morose about things and she shouldn't have to constantly try to cool him down and cheer him up and make him see reason and comfort him. Katara deserved someone better than him.

Jet, however, was _not_ better than him, and watching her smile at the captain just made his blood pressure skyrocket.

 _No one_ was good enough for Katara, but the captain was _less_ than no one.

 _"Wow,_ you're jealous," Suki said quietly, sinking awkwardly into the seat next to him, propping her crutch up against the table and wrenching the paring knife out of his fingers. "Jet's gonna be pissed that you cut up his table."

He opened his mouth to say something mean, but he couldn't come up with anything really suitable, so he settled on a scowl. "I'm not jealous," he muttered, and Suki snorted.

"Sure, and moose-lions are sweet, tame creatures who love to frolic in fields of wildflowers. If you're so jealous, why're you sitting over here instead of going over and playing He-Man the Woman-Lover and snatching Katara back from Jet's sleazy, tea-drinking fingers?"

He shot Suki a glare and tried not be amused. "I can't," he replied, but did feel slightly better to talk to someone about it all. "I - I can't," he repeated lamely, and Suki raised an eyebrow. He sighed. "When Azula... took Aang," he started, the words tasting of acid on his tongue, "I could have - _should have_ done something," he finished, and Suki tapped her chin.

"So, what, you're not good enough for her because you didn't fight your sister?" she asked, looking confused, and he breathed out a ring of smoke - better, he supposed, than setting the whole table on fire, which he'd very nearly done when he'd overheard Jet's voice from the bridge complimenting Katara on her tea.

"No," he grumbled, running a hand through his hair, "but yes... I... I was too focused on _her_ \- I should have been focused on my mission, on protecting Aang, but I... wasn't."

"Fair enough," Suki replied, and he glanced at her - she wasn't supposed to _agree._ "What? You screwed up back there," she said bluntly, and then sighed. "Join the club. We _all_ screwed up. If you think that pushing her away is gonna suddenly change all your thoughts from _god I want to get up her skirt again_ to MUST FIND AVATAR - " this, she said in a loud, robotic voice that he also tried not to be amused by " - then great, give it a shot. But if you're the one pushing her away, then you don't get to tear up the table 'cause you're jealous."

"Your powers of sympathy are astounding," he deadpanned, and she rolled her eyes.

"It's not that," she said, leaning back in her chair. "Look, mister sparks-a-lot, you're hardly the only one here who's gone through hell. _Everyone_ on this ship has lost someone or something they cared about, and some of us have lost everything, sometimes more than once," she added in a dark voice, and he thought she might have been referring to herself, "but complaining about it and going all broody and whiny doesn't do any good. Take it from someone who knows. You have a problem with the way your stars have aligned?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Go change them."

"I don't believe in fate," he lied, choosing the least of her words to counter because the rest of it cut a little too deep for comfort. Instead of rolling her eyes again or getting angry, Suki grinned.

"Neither do I," she replied, her smile just this side of savage. "If fate does exist, she's a bitch and I don't wanna deal with her. I notice that you didn't comment on the rest of what I said. Hit a little close to home?"

He took a deep breath and prodded at the hole he'd dug in the wood of the table. "I don't want to let her go," he said quietly, refusing to look back to the bridge to see her, "but I think I may have to."

Suki shrugged. "How about you don't worry over it right now?" she suggested, and he looked at her. "We've got enough to deal with at the moment without digging into all the tangled relationships. Worry about Aang, worry about what to do with Azula, worry about the future of the 'Verse." She stood up and took her crutch, glancing down at him. "If nothing else," she added, a little softer, "it'll help you forget about her."

"I don't _want_ to forget about her," he breathed, and Suki shot him one last, sympathetic look before she limped out of the dining room, leaving Zuko alone with his thoughts.

* * *

"You don't have your visor," Haru said, and she jumped. Ordinarily, it was outright _impossible_ to sneak up on Toph, but she hadn't been focused on the rest of the ship, she was so busy making sure that the engine was running perfectly - the last thing they needed was for _Freedom_ to crap out on them now, in the clutch.

"I left it with my mom," she replied sheepishly, tapping her toes against the ground to re-orient herself - Haru was leaning against the wall of the engine room, Katara was in the lounge with Jet, Longshot and Bee were cuddling on the bridge, Zuko and Suki were in the dining room, Ty Lee was back in her dorm, Sokka was asleep in his dorm, Pipsqueak and the Duke were playing jacks in the cargo bay, and Mai was alone in her shuttle. All but one present and accounted for.

"She seemed very happy to see you," he said, and she could hear him grinning.

"Really, genius, what gave it away? The glomping hug or the barely letting me out of her sight for the whole week?" She was being sarcastic because she still didn't want to think about how much it must have hurt her mother when she'd run away. She still believed that she had done the right thing, but she just wished it hadn't come to that.

"Why'd you give her your visor?" he asked, leaning against the engine casing. She sighed and pulled her hair into a low bun at the base of her neck.

"I..." she began, and then bit her lip. "Promise not to think I'm stupid?"

She could practically feel the "please tell me you're kidding" look he was giving her - Haru had seen her at her absolute worst, and he was unlikely to suddenly decide that she wasn't worth his time now. "I promise," he said flatly, and she took a deep breath.

"I left it as... well, to promise her I was going to come back. Not for good," she said hastily, desperate to make that distinction. "But... you know, I had myself convinced that they hated me?" she asked, rubbing the back of her neck, and she felt him shift a little closer to her. "I thought, well, 'cause I wasn't at all what they wanted and... I just thought they'd be better off without me. But... I was wrong."

"I could have told you that," he said sardonically, and she hit him in the arm - the brief contact lit him up in her senses and she could feel him laughing lightly, easily.

It occurred to her suddenly that this might be the last time they would ever be able to stand like this, comfortable and laughing and without the worry hanging so heavy in the air. They were going to Sihnon, to the lion's den, and chances were, they weren't all going to walk away from this one - they'd been downright _lucky_ last time, and if Bee hadn't made the call to retreat, they probably all would have died. But retreating wasn't an option now: it was either succeed at this, or die trying.

"Hey, Haru?" she said slowly, and he turned.

"Yes?"

"Thank you," she said quietly. "For convincing me to go to my parents. And for taking care of me when I got impaled with that javelin. And for... for coming with us, back on Persephone. I know this isn't... you didn't have to get involved in this, and it's not... it's really not cool that you're going down with us - "

"What makes you think that?" he asked evenly. "That I didn't have to get involved?"

"Don't tell me you believe it was your fate," she challenged, smirking, and he shook his head.

"I never said anything about fate."

She hesitated - this conversation was taking a turn for the horribly uncomfortable, and _fast._ "So, why'd you come?" she asked quietly, and she felt him take a deep breath.

"Well, I met an extraordinary woman that night," he said quietly, "and I knew I would regret it for the rest of my life if I let her walk away."

"Yeah," she replied, hoping that she wasn't blushing, "Jet _is_ a pretty amazing woman."

Haru laughed out loud.

* * *

At the Shirxiu's Nest bar in the capital city of Lu'wong on Sihnon

Sokka led the way into the beautifully decorated bar, flanked by Jet and Bee, but with the whole crew on his heels. At the first table sat Jun, looking for all the world like a mere patron of the establishment. She waved them over.

"I see you brought the whole family," she drawled, motioning for the barman to come over. "Bring us three pots of tea," she barked, and the barman nodded before rushing off. "So, Sokka," Jun said, crossing her legs languidly, "you mentioned that the fate of the 'Verse was at stake. Tell me about that."

"Uh," he replied, glancing at Katara (who was glancing at Zuko), "it's kind of... secret."

Jun raised an eyebrow. "Friend, I'm the reason you haven't been swarmed by Alliance yet, and let me tell you, that's no easy thing to arrange in this climate. If I ask for a reason why I'm sticking my neck out for a bunch of Independents who haven't quite given up the war, you'd better get over yourself and tell me, _dong le ma?_ "

"We're not trying to start up the war," Jet said, and Jun looked at him.

"Do I know you?" she asked, and he shrugged.

"You've probably heard of me," he replied evenly, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. "D'you mind?" he asked, and she plucked the box from him and took one before tossing it back at him.

"Not anymore," she answered. "Got a light?"

Jet looked at Zuko, whose glare said everything, and he sighed heavily. "Boy's a firebender," he grumbled around his cigarette, while he pulled out his matchbook, "but he won't ever give me a light. That just ain't fair, is it?"

Jun laughed at that. "I _have_ heard of you," she said, lighting her cigarette on Jet's match. "You're the one who busted Hama's skyplex, aren't you?"

"Yup," he replied.

"So, you say you're not trying to start up the war," she said, shrugging, "all right. I'll believe you for the moment. Then what _are_ you doing?"

"Stopping Azula," Zuko answered, and Jun raised that same eyebrow again. "She knows a secret, something big and dangerous, and she's going to use it to bring the Outer Rim to heel - and knowing her, it'll involve the deaths of a lot of innocent people." Jun watched him carefully, and then motioned with her cigarette.

"Weren't you the one who tried to kill her a couple of months back?"

Zuko sighed. "I didn't. She framed me," he said bitterly, and Jun shrugged.

"You probably should've seen that coming," she replied, and then leaned forward. "So, you wanna break the Avatar outta the princess's clutches, depose her and place Prince Pouty here on the throne?" she asked, and then went on. "You're gonna have a big hurdle, right up front: the Parliament. Azula's their _darling,"_ she explained, "and they really think Prince Pouty's the psychopathic one. Now, you ask on the street, everyone already knows the truth about her, but she's got the right people convinced that she can do no wrong, and that's _going_ to become a problem."

"She's trying to kill Fath - Ozai," Zuko said, and then made a face, "but I don't even know if she's wrong to..."

"Eh, Ozai's a prick, but he's not exactly a military genius," Jun replied. "No offence," she added insincerely. "He's lucky, but dumb when it comes to war, and his time's coming to a close no matter what Azula does. Parliament hates him; the first chance they get, they'll toss him out. No, Azula's the one you've gotta be afraid of. She's smart, and damn crafty, and she wants power." Jun took a deep drag on her cigarette and puffed a ring of smoke into the air. "So, how do you plan to stop the princess?"

"First things first," Sokka replied, "we have to figure out the details of her plan, whatever this secret is that she knows."

"And to do that?" Jun asked, and the barman returned with three pots of tea and a whole platter of cups. She began pouring the tea as Jet leaned forward a bit.

"We've gotta get into the palace. We already have an ally there."

"Although we can't be sure if Azula hasn't found her out yet," Sokka added, trying to imagine Diana dead at the princess's hand. The image was more bitter than he'd thought it would be.

"Hmm," Jun replied, "well, there's lots of ways in and out of the palace, but I guarantee that I don't have anything Princey here doesn't. What, exactly, are you going for in the palace?"

"The records room," Jet answered immediately. "Our contact gave me a code to a specific message that has the information we need."

"Records rooms are closed off to all non-personnel," Jun said, sipping her cup of tea and lounging in her chair like it was a throne. "You'll want to look the part of an Alliance officer for that."

"Can you help us?" Sokka asked, and she snorted.

"No," she replied, snickering. "I'll help you plot it out, but I am not sticking my neck into this any further than I have to. If you screw it all up, I wanna be able to claim total ignorance."

Well, he thought, at least her honesty was refreshing. "So, you suggest that we dress as Alliance officers?"

"Okay," she corrected, holding up a hand, "first off, you can't take everyone into the records room. Princey coulda told you that, right, Princey?" she asked, and Zuko scowled at the nickname.

"Right," he replied. "That would draw too much attention."

"Correct," Jun said cheerfully, toasting her teacup to Zuko. "If you want everyone in the crew to know, you'll have to copy the recording. Once you do that, though, you better be prepared to strike fast, 'cause there's no hiding that a copy's been made."

Sokka looked over the group - choosing who was going to go into the records room, that was going to be fun. He turned back to Jun. "So you suggest that we have everything planned before we go in? But what if what we find out there changes everything?"

She shrugged. "Hope it doesn't," she suggested, draining her teacup and pouring another. "You know that she's targeting your home planet, right? So, split up. Half plan to go to St. Albans to stop whatever she's planning, while half stay to infiltrate the palace. The palace team can send the information to the away team, who can then get out of my hair and go save their world."

"That's a good idea," Jet said evenly, and Sokka knew him well enough to know that he hated it - but Jun was right. Chances were, Azula's plan was already in motion, and the best chance they had to thwart it would be to attack it from both sides.

"Yeah, who'd've thought?" Jun said airily. "The crime boss knows how to plot."

Sokka winced, but Jun didn't seem offended - just sarcastic. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Toph smirk approvingly. "You said you could give us sanctuary - what do you mean by that?" he asked. "Do you have someplace in mind for us to stay, or are you just keeping watch on our ship and making sure that it doesn't get out that we're here?"

"The second one," Jun replied, and then smirked. "It's a lot easier, and uses less man power. So, you'll be wanting to stay on your rustbucket until you're one-hundred-percent sure you're ready to get this show on the road."

"Thank you," Sokka said fervently, and she shrugged.

"Hey, I'm not heartless, or stupid," she said. "Azula's trouble I don't want, and, well," she added, raising her teacup as they stood to leave, "to the Independent ideals, if not the Independent fight," she said darkly, and drained her cup. "One last thing," she called after them. "You get any of my men involved in your fight, our deal is off. You work on your own. If you screw up, I am _not_ paying for it."

Sokka nodded. "Understood," he replied.


	8. Chapter Seven: Hall of the Fire Lords

On _Freedom_

Jet scowled at the roughly-drawn map that Ty Lee and Zuko had provided for him. He was rather certain that Ty Lee had done most of the drawing - the throne room was marked by a giant _frowny face_ , for god's sake! - and wished that he had a real map. Zuko had outlined all of the secret passages that he knew about, but warned them that Azula knew all of the ones he did, rendering most of them moot.

He hated the idea of splitting up, especially because he knew he couldn't leave his ship, which meant he'd be leaving the palace team in someone else's hands. He would have liked to offer it to Sokka, but Sokka had sworn that he was going to St. Albans, which left him with... less than an abundance of options.

"I think we might be able to just walk in," Bee mused, poring over the map beside him. He glanced at her, so she continued. "They don't know we're here, and they don't have good descriptions of us. We can walk in like we're tourists or something, and once we're in the palace, find a stock room or something and get some spare uniforms for the palace team."

"Hmm," he replied, leaning back in his chair. "That might work. You and Longshot could do it, they didn't get a good look at you."

"Just as a fair warning," Suki piped up, holding up a hand like she was in grade school, "it's really dark in those closets." Sokka coughed nervously; Jet decided that he didn't want to know.

"How many uniforms do we need?" Longshot asked, and Jet sighed.

"Well, that depends on how we're splitting up. I'm on the St. Albans team," he grumbled, wishing that he wasn't.

"So am I," Longshot said, and then glanced apologetically at the map. "I have to fly the ship."

"I go where you two go," Bee replied.

"I've already told you that I'm going to St. Albans," Sokka said. Suki peered hard at the palace map and took a deep breath.

"I'm on the palace team," she said slowly. "My specialty is hand-to-hand combat," she explained, "I'll be more useful here."

"Same here," Ty Lee chirped, and Jet raised an eyebrow - even after she got burned half to death by Azula, she was still going in to face her? Maybe, he thought, he'd underestimated the acrobat. "I'm practically healed up from the burns thanks to Katara," she went on, smiling at the waterbender, "and Suki taught me how to block firebending with my fans. Plus!" she added excitedly, "I think there's a way to disable bending. I already know the right pressure points, I just have to... learn how," she said sheepishly, and then barrelled on, "but when I do, that'll be really useful against Azula."

"I'm on the palace team," Katara said firmly, and Jet saw Zuko glance sideways at her, a look on his face that reminded Jet painfully of the way he had felt when Mai had said she was leaving.

"So am I," Zuko said softly.

"Myself as well," Mai added, and he glanced at her. She shrugged. "Like Suki, I'll be more use in close combat."

Haru leaned against the table. "I'll go with the St. Albans team," he said, glancing at Katara, "that way there's a medic on each party."

"Pipsqueak?" Jet asked, and Pipsqueak saluted him.

"I'm with you, Cap'n," he replied, and the Duke nudged him in the ribcage. "And so's this little brat."

"That leaves... Toph," Jet said, turning to his mechanic, whose face was strangely blank of emotion. She took a deep breath.

"I'll go with the palace team," she said quietly. "Aang needs me more than the Water Tribe does."

"Translation," he explained, trying to lighten her mood, "Toph doesn't want to have to wear shoes." He dodged to the side before she could hit him, and then continued, more seriously, "That splits us up right at even. Seven on the St. Albans team, six on the palace team - "

"Seven," Toph corrected him sharply, and he glanced at her, then recounted. Nope, he still got six.

"Uh, Tophlet, I'm pretty sure - "

"You're forgetting Aang," she said, and he blinked. "Once we free him, he's on our team."

"Sure thing," Jet replied, somewhat sardonically, "but we're not gonna get him a uniform."

* * *

Bee hooked an arm into her husband's and tried very hard not to scream. The Fire Nation palace was the very definition of _opulence,_ but she hadn't been a tracker for years without learning a few tricks - namely, where, midst the riches, might the opposition's guards and surveillance be stationed. The set-up of the palace was such that every single corner of the grounds could be watched, a necessity when there were tourists constantly pouring in to take pictures in front of it.

There were tours that went through a few halls of the palace, and although they cost a pretty penny, Bee handed over the coin without hesitation - they needed to look the part of star-struck tourists visiting the capital for the first time. To facilitate this, they were dressed as nicely as possible (Jet had smirked uncontrollably when she'd reluctantly asked to borrow makeup and one of Mai's dresses) and weren't even armed.

She felt naked without her gunbelt and an extra clip, but if the Alliance caught even the slightest hint of a whiff that they were connected to the recent whispers of Independent uprising, everything would fall apart. It was a delicate game, and as long as she reminded herself that this was another type of battle, she could even feel all right in the dress.

"Excuse me," she asked, trying not to make her rim accent too obvious. The guard turned to her and gave her a look like she was covered in poison. "When does the next tour begin?"

"In fifteen minutes," the guard answered tersely, and she smiled widely (it helped to imagine shooting the guard full of holes for the disdainful glare he was giving her) and thanked him with as much obnoxious cheer as she could possibly inject into two words.

"I hate this place," she growled, the moment the guard was out of earshot.

"It's not... that bad," Longshot replied uneasily. "If you can get past the feeling of being watched constantly."

"How many cameras have you spotted?" she asked, glancing sideways at him.

"Seventeen," he murmured, and she raised an eyebrow. She'd missed one. "Most look very new," he added, glancing around surreptitiously and making a show of pointing to a statue of a scary-looking man with mutton chops. "Who d'you suppose he was?" he asked loudly, and she pursed her lips.

"Fire Lord Sozin the Glorious," she read off the plaque, trying not to retch. "The Glorious? I can't say I've ever heard that epithet."

"It's not the Sozin you're thinking of," he explained, pointing to the touchscreen plaque displaying a splash of propaganda. "This one lived during the Age of Bending."

"They like naming their kids after their dead forefathers in the Fire Nation, don't they?" she asked lightly, noticing a camera situated in the statue's eye... very clever, she thought, and also very, very creepy. As they walked away, she leaned closer to Longshot. "You see the camera lens in the eye?"

"Yes," he replied. "It's probably one of the new ones. They're really taking this talk of uprising seriously."

She frowned. "It wasn't supposed to be like this," she said quietly. "I never meant to..."

"I know," he muttered, squeezing her shoulder gently. "But if it comes to starting up the war again or bowing to Azula, I'll be first in line to recruit."

"I hate to say it," she replied, "but I agree. I swore I was done with all of it after Serenity, but... Azula's just too dangerous."

He glanced at her, and then motioned to the next statue. "General Iroh," he read on the plaque. "Sozin the Glorious's grandson."

"Iroh..." she murmured, noting the resemblance between the statue and the man she'd known all-too-briefly. It was almost enough to make her believe there was such a thing as fate. "Not another Fire Lord?"

"I don't know," Longshot replied, scrolling through the information on the plaque. "It says here he abdicated to his younger brother, and spent the last decades of his life searching for the Avatar."

"I'm surprised they put that out there," Bee said, eyebrows raised. "I thought the official story was that the Avatar was a myth."

"All myths are rooted in truth, if you go back far enough," he said slowly. "The story I heard was that the last Avatar was a force of evil, and wasn't allowed to reincarnate because of it."

"They made him out to be a boogeyman," Bee mused, "something the 'Verse is better off without. And bending, too, except for themselves."

"Classic Alliance," Longshot sighed. "Hypocrisy baked in from the start."

The next statue was a woman, beautiful and terrible to look at: Azula I. The princess looked a bit like her namesake, and seemed to have decided to style her hair in a similar way, but either the sculptor was too kind or their Azula had meaner eyes. "Azula I," she read from the plaque, scrolling through the paragraphs listlessly, "great-granddaughter of Sozin the Glorious, the last Fire Lord of the Age of Bending, greatest firebender ever born, a great queen who brought the Earth Kingdom into the light of unity and alliance with the Fire Nation. More like _fire_ light," she muttered under her breath.

"She looks nice," Longshot said without irony. "Beatific."

"They owe a great debt to her, don't they?" Bee replied, raising an eyebrow. "Remember what Iroh said, she's the one who sealed Aang up and hid him deep."

"Right. But there's good and bad in every family, who knows?"

Bee privately felt like, if the Fire Nation wanted people to think you were a _great queen_ who had brought _the light of unity and alliance_ to a "savage" nation, it meant that you'd been a terrible person. But maybe she was just paranoid; she didn't trust anyone who heaped praise in double-sided words on dead people. If a dead person had really been good, you didn't need fancy words to say it. And what wasn't said - the last Fire Lord of the Age of Bending. She'd supposedly been the greatest firebender ever, but she'd burned up the game board so no one else could play. Instead of bringing back the Avatar when she had the chance, she'd sealed him up and stashed him where, theoretically, no one would ever find him; why do that unless she had something to fear from him? A truly great queen would have welcomed a force of balance and peacekeeping.

"I wonder what would have happened if that Iroh - " she motioned to the other statue " - had found Aang instead," she mused.

"Maybe the same," Longshot shrugged. "Maybe it was fate that he be sealed all this time."

"No, it was this one's choice," Bee countered, a bit sharply. "If someone else had found him, they might've made a different choice and things would've been different. Maybe for us it all would have come out to the same, but three thousand years is a long time for a little choice to add up to big changes."

"It's also circumstance," he said evenly. "General Iroh _didn't_ find him. Azula I _did._ And here we are."

 _Yeah, but what if?_ she wanted to ask, but there was little point in wondering. Thinking about what might have been, if some dead guy from three thousand years ago had stumbled across Aang, wasn't going to make this Azula any less a threat, or the 'Verse any less in danger. _No point in looking backwards, you're not going that way_ , the maxim she'd always lived by.

"Says she was the daughter of Phoenix King Ozai," she said, tilting her head at the plaque. "What's a Phoenix King?"

"And where's his statue?" Longshot asked, glancing around and coming closer to the statue. She paused at that, looking from the earlier statue - Iroh - and then to the next one - Azula I. Iroh was grandson, Azula was great-grandson, but Azula was not Iroh's daughter.

"He didn't get one. That's weird."

"The tone is pretty clipped," he said, "not much about him at all. I guess he wasn't popular."

The line of dead Fire Lords stretched on around the courtyard, and she wondered how many people had been quietly written out of history like this Phoenix King - someone who'd clearly had high hopes for himself, came up with a fancy new title and _everything,_ but whose daughter had either outshone him so spectacularly that he was forgotten or she'd erased him herself, for reasons lost to time. Thousands of stories, and all that was left now were statues.

"The tour's about to start," she said quietly, nudging Longshot toward the main door, feeling something she'd never experienced before, this strange, stretching sense of deep time, and she wondered if this is what it felt like to be Aang - all that history rising up around you but you still have to keep going forward.

Going forward, that's what all this was about: go forward, don't go back to the war, don't go back to Serenity, don't let it happen again because people are too angry and too hurt and too scared to let it go. The past had so much inertia, though, and it drew all of them down with it - Katara and her home planet, the accusations she'd never been able to shake off; Zuko and his family, the line stretching back for ages; Suki and her warriors, the people she'd never buried who still haunted her; Jet and Bee and Serenity Valley, the failure that had latched onto their souls and would never, ever leave.

Thousands of stories, and all that was left now were ghosts, and them.

She tried to shake it off, as they slipped into the tour group gathered at the door and showed their tickets to get them in. She was struck, immediately, with how _functional_ the palace was - on the outside, it was ornately decorated, but within, it was militaristic in its simplicity. Aside from the oil paintings of past Fire Lords lining the walls, there were no decorations, no chandeliers dripping with crystal, no rugs or tapestries or obvious signs of wealth. It was, she recognized, less a palace and more a fortress.

"This is the Hall of the Fire Lords," the tour guide was saying, but she didn't pay attention.

"Let's play 'who can count the most creepy-ass cameras'," Bee muttered out of the corner of her mouth, and Longshot snorted.

"No one ever accused the Fire Nation of being trusting," he replied, a little smirk on his lips. She snickered, and made a show of holding back to peer at the painting of Sozin the Glorious. He looked almost the exact same as the statue of him outside, and no less severe for being in color.

"D'you think he ever had any friends?" she asked absently, pointing at the picture. Longshot raised an eyebrow.

"Guy like that? Probably not," he replied. "Not real friends, at least."

"That's sad," she muttered, peering at his angry golden eyes. "Maybe if he had, things would have gone differently."

"Maybe," Longshot replied, "maybe not."

She sighed, and looked around - the tour was leaving them behind, and they needed to catch up or arouse suspicion, so they hastily sped up some and joined with the tail end of the group. The tour guide led them through the halls, past the soldier's barracks - another sign of paranoia, the Fire Lord kept an entire battalion in the palace with him - and she glanced at Longshot, and nodded. The barracks would be the best chance to find spare clothing.

Luckily, a door opened just after the main throng of the group passed, and a couple of soldiers walked out, chatting with each other, and they slipped through the door the moment the soldiers had left behind. Of course, they had closed it behind them, but they'd already proved that people regularly traveled this area, so the door opening again didn't arouse undue suspicion.

Another stroke of luck - the barrack was empty. She glanced at Longshot and nodded, pulling her backpack from her shoulder and threw out the Fire Nation and Alliance propaganda that she'd stashed there to make it look normal. Hastily, they opened up the nearest six trunks and stole a uniform out of each, stuffing them into her backpack awkwardly.

" _Tā māde_ ," she whispered. "There's no way that last one's fitting in here."

The uniforms were so heavy and bulky, more armor than any kind of clothing, and her backpack was already about twice her weight. He looked at the last one, then to her, and nodded, returning it to its trunk. "They'll have to steal another one when they get in," he said, and then tried to take the bag from her. She raised an eyebrow.

"I got it," she said, and lifted it onto her back. It wasn't like she hadn't carried more during the war. Longshot looked away.

"Sorry," he muttered, and she snickered.

"'S all right," she replied, and they sneaked back out of the room, walking confidently back out the doors - the bored-looking guard merely nodded at her as she left, and she thanked her lucky stars that she didn't stand out like Katara or Mai did in a crowd, or the guard might have noticed that her bag was fuller than it had been when she'd gone in. "Okay," she breathed, as they left the gates, "let's get this back to the crew."


	9. Chapter Eight: Muladhara

On _Freedom_

Suki waited on the ship while Katara and Toph left - in the bulky armor that passed for a uniform in the Fire Nation palace - to find out exactly what they were dealing with at the records room.

It was hard to face the reality that this might really be the last time she would ever be on this ship - since she'd left Sihnon and joined it, she had found and learned so much, suffered and succeeded and failed in so many ways... it felt like a whole chapter of her life was drawing to a close, and she wasn't sure she liked it.

"You'll want to take it easy," Haru explained, wrapping her knee tightly. "Don't push it if you don't have to."

"Thanks," she said quietly, and stood up, testing her weight on her leg; it wasn't perfect, but Suki was used to working with not-perfect. Katara had healed it before leaving, and although she'd always have a limp, she could walk on it without falling on her face, so she called it a win. "Ty Lee, you want to go practice those disabling moves?"

"Sure," the acrobat answered, and even her normal cheer was dampened by the tension. She was bandaged up, but her burns had healed remarkably since she'd woken up - thanks to constant care from Haru and twice-daily healing from Katara - and she didn't seem to have any obvious trouble handling the pain. Then again, the more Suki learned about Ty Lee, the more she understood her: Ty Lee got sad and angry and frustrated just like everyone else, she just didn't show it, preferring to show a happy face to the world.

It got annoying sometimes, but sometimes it was also exactly what Suki needed.

They had gotten the Duke to help them with Ty Lee's practicing (really, they had talked to Pipsqueak, and he had volunteered the Duke without the latter's knowledge) and the teenager was standing awkwardly in the cargo bay when they arrived, Pipsqueak standing at his side.

"How are we going to do this?" Pipsqueak asked, and Suki glanced to Ty Lee, who bit her lip.

"Well, there are certain pressure points on the body," she explained, pulling the Duke around and pointing to a few specific places on his back. "I learned about them in gymnastics, because we were supposed to avoid landing on them if we could. If you hit those pressure points, your body locks up and you can't move for oh, fifteen minutes?"

"So, you're planning to use those pressure points to stop Azula?" the Duke asked, and both Suki and Ty Lee nodded.

"That's why we need to practice," Suki said. "We need to make sure she can hit the right places, quickly, before Azula has a chance to react."

"And I'm the guinea pig?" he inferred, and then sighed, shooting Pipsqueak a dark look.

"Well, I'd like to try it on both of you," Ty Lee said, rocking back and forth on her feet. "I mean, I really wanted to try it on Zuko, 'cause he's a bender, and I need to know if it really _will_ block bending, but he's... in a bad mood so I didn't ask."

"Figures," the Duke muttered, and then took a deep breath. "All right, fine. Let's get this over with."

"Okay," Ty Lee chirped, and hit the Duke in several places on his back, but she was wincing even before he jerked away from her.

"What the - ah!" he cried, trying to twist away from her.

"Sorry!" she replied, biting her lip. "I missed the first one."

The Duke gaped at her, and then at Pipsqueak, who merely watched the scene impassively. "Deal with it, you whiner," Pipsqueak said, crossing his arms. "If this works, we'll have a way to stop Azula."

"I thought that was Aang's job?" the Duke muttered, but let Ty Lee move him back into place.

"It is," Suki replied, "but we don't know what state he's going to be in when we get there. Take it from someone who knows," she added darkly, "it pays to have a plan in place in case something goes wrong."

"That's morbid, Suki," Ty Lee said fervently, moving her fingers against the Duke's back like she was feeling for a pulse. "Aang will be fine, I'm sure of it."

"Even so," Pipsqueak cut in, "she's right. We can't bank on him - it's best that we have another plan."

Ty Lee chewed on her lip, and then nodded, apparently satisfied with whatever she was feeling for on the Duke's back. Again, she brought her hand into a fist, with one knuckle sticking out, and hit the Duke in several places. This time, he dropped to the floor with a cry. "Did that hurt?" she asked, holding her hands over her mouth. "Oh, I hope it didn't hurt."

"Can you move?" Suki asked, kneeling awkwardly by him, and he made a face.

"Yes to Ty Lee and no to Suki," he replied, and then whimpered. "Help?"

Ty Lee immediately dropped to her knees and helped bring him into a sitting position. "It's temporary!" she cried. "You'll be fine in a few minutes."

Pipsqueak raised an eyebrow. "Your technique works," he said approvingly. "But how do you plan to get that close to Azula?"

"Leave that to me," Suki replied, running her hand over her fan. "You just work on getting fast enough."

* * *

Jet stood at the door to Mai's shuttle, watching her load up her crossbow, her arms already glistening with _senbon_ and hidden throwing knives. There was no telling how long they would have between Katara and Toph's return and when Azula found them out, and he figured that she wanted to go in fully prepared for anything - that was just how Mai was.

"So," he said, and she stilled for a moment. "Tell me, why are you leaving?" he asked. It hadn't been what he'd come in here to say - he'd meant to ask her if she was sure of which team she was going with - but it fell out of his mouth all the same. She shook her head.

"You're asking me this _now?"_ she replied incredulously, and he leaned against the door.

"Can you conjure up a better time?"

 _"Any_ other?" she suggested, loading her crossbow with a little more force than was strictly necessary.

"I don't see it that way," he replied, crossing his arms. "Way I see it, chances are I could die soon, and so could you. I don't wanna die without knowing," he said, and the rest of his sentence - _why you're really going_ \- didn't come out. Instead, it stayed shorter, more tense, and filled with all the things he still couldn't muster up the courage to say.

"Jet..." she said quietly, and glanced at him, face impassive. "That's exactly why I can't," she murmured, and he watched her curiously as she placed the last bolts and prepared to leave.

"I still want an answer," he snapped, standing in the doorway. She stopped directly in front of him, staring hard at his shoulder, and took a deep breath.

"Veniton's," she said, and he raised an eyebrow.

"That's not an answer to... any of my questions," he said hesitantly, and she closed her eyes.

"Look it up," she replied through clenched teeth, "and it will be."

With that, she slipped past him and disappeared into his ship.

* * *

Suki stood at the door to Sokka's dorm, a little unsure. He was sitting on his bed, carefully (and badly) carving a doll, similar to the one he'd had before, but considerably larger. "What are you doing?" she asked, taking a seat next to him, and he bit his lip.

"It's..." he sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. "When my mom died, I... made Katara a matryoshka - uh, nesting doll," he explained. "That's what I had with me when..." he trailed off and ran his hand through his hair again. "She has it now, I got it back to her, but, um... well, matryoshka dolls are..." he started, and then sighed. "I suck at this," he grumbled, and she gently took the knife from him and smoothed out a few of the rougher edges.

"What's the significance?" she asked, paying careful attention to the doll and not to Sokka.

"Matryoshka dolls are... well, look at them," he said, pointing to the vaguely doll-shaped hunks of wood that lined his desk in descending order of size. "They're a symbol of how everything fits together, you know? The one I made for Katara is Dad, and then the next-smaller one is Mom, and then me, and then Katara's the littlest doll. You... can't really tell," he added sheepishly. "But I thought..." he said, staring at the dolls. "I thought I'd make one for the crew," he finished, and made a face. "Go ahead, laugh," he grumbled, but she didn't see anything funny about it.

"That's a really good idea," she said quietly, and he turned to her. She smiled. "You should make the biggest one the ship, and then all of us inside the ship."

"I was planning to," he said, grinning. "And the littlest one was gonna be Aang. I planned to give it to him, you know, so that... even when he's off Avatar-ing... he'll have something to remember us all by."

"What's this _was_ you're talking about?" she asked, and he made a face.

"I suck at carving," he replied bluntly, and sighed.

"I'll help," she said, showing him the large, smooth egg that would be the ship, once they'd shaped it properly. Sokka smiled at her, but his eyes were melancholy. "Are you... angry with me?" she asked slowly, and he blinked.

"About staying on the palace team?" he asked, and then shook his head. "No. I'm just... scared."

"I'm worried about the Water Tribe too," she murmured, cutting into the sides of the egg to form the engines. Sokka stared at her.

"That isn't what I meant," he said quietly, and she turned to him. "I'm scared that something will happen... to... everyone," he said, turning away, "but especially Katara... and you."

She stared hard at the half-formed carving of the ship and took a deep breath. "You said... before, you said that when this was over, you and me would... reform the Kyoshi Warriors," she said hesitantly, and then swallowed hard. She'd come in here to ask this question, but no amount of preparing herself could make it easy. "Did you mean it?"

"Yeah," he replied, and then smiled. "I was thinking... we could start them up on one of the border planets, recruit some of the settlers out there and teach them all those cool moves you know, and then... protect them from bandits and Reavers and... everything."

"That sounds... amazing, Sokka," she said, and was horrified to hear her own voice break on the word _amazing_ \- but this was... he was planning to help make her dream a reality. She felt overwhelmed and excited and hopeful and _loved._ He gave her a wry grin.

"How's this sound?" he asked, taking the next-largest block of wood. "You help me carve the matryoshka doll, and I'll help you reform the Kyoshi Warriors."

"You can't bargain with that," she replied in false outrage, glad to laugh instead of burst into tears. "You already promised!"

He smiled. "So did you."

* * *

In the Spirit World

"It's just - hard," he said lamely, and Kyoshi watched him dispassionately. "I know," he snapped, reading her reply in her expression. "I know, it's going to be hard, but I... I can't shake the feeling that I'm running out of time, and I'm still no closer to opening my base chakra. I'm just - I'm scared," he said quietly, and Kyoshi sat next to him in the cell.

"So was I," she replied, and he turned to her.

"What?"

She gave him a strange look and took a deep breath. "I, too, was afraid. My base chakra was not the one that gave me trouble, but... Aang, we were _all_ afraid and overwhelmed by the power and the - responsibility," she breathed. "You would be a fool _not_ to be afraid."

"But I've got to somehow let _go_ of my fear!" he cried, shaking his head. "I - I'm _so_ scared. All these people... there's so many people relying on me, and Azula's plotting something _big_ and I'm trapped and..." he trailed off desperately and looked to Kyoshi. "How do I let go of fear? How did you?"

"Aang, letting go of fear does not mean that you cease to be afraid," she explained. "It simply means that you will not allow your fear to control you. Do you recall the meeting with Azula and Ozai?"

"Yes," he replied slowly, "you were watching?"

She gave him a tight-lipped smile. "I am always watching, Aang. So is Roku," she added, "when he can."

He looked at her, confused. "Shouldn't I... be talking to Roku right now? I'm not - I'm glad you're here," he corrected hastily, although she didn't look offended, "but... isn't Roku supposed to be my guide?"

"Roku..." she began slowly, "is weak. During your absence, the spirit world fell into decay, and most spirits slept. Roku, however, tried constantly to reach you, until he finally found someone who could listen. His spirit was greatly weakened by the ordeal. I chose to come in his stead, and to aid you with earthbending while your teacher is unable to guide you."

"Spirits can be weakened?" he asked, gaping at her. "I didn't know that."

"Neither did we," she replied with a bitter smile. "As I was saying," she said abruptly, the smile melting into a severe look, "you recall the meeting with Azula and Ozai - there, you were able to control the spirit by setting your fear aside. It is not the _same_ as controlling the spirit by unlocking your chakras, however, the concept is much the same. Aang, you _will_ fear," she said firmly. "And you will feel guilt, and you will be ashamed, and you will grieve, and lie, and convince yourself of things that are false, and you will love, perhaps so deeply that you forget your position of detachment. These are part of being _alive._ If the Avatar was never to feel those things," she explained sagely, "the Avatar Spirit would not inhabit a body. What you must do is learn to _control_ those emotions, to keep _them_ from controlling _you."_

"So, it's not about... letting go, so much as it's..." he mused, biting his lip, "it's about being in control of my spirit."

"Precisely," Kyoshi replied. "Controlling the Avatar State is much like controlling an element - and, like all of the elements, is dangerous if left unchecked. The Avatar State is a state of pure power, much like a cyclone or a tsunami - it is pure power, and pure destruction. However, the power is not inherently good, and the destruction is not inherently evil; power breeds weakness, and destruction paves the way for creation. You, as the bearer of this state, must understand what it is capable of."

"But _how?"_ he asked, and she looked at him carefully.

"How do you move air?" she countered simply. "When you have unlocked your chakras, when you have brought your spirit under _your_ control, using the Avatar State will be as simple - and natural - to you as bending air."

"Because my spirit _is_ the Avatar State," he inferred, and she nodded. "But that doesn't help me let go of fear."

"Avatar Aang," she said quietly, "there is only one way to _truly_ let go of fear."

"What is that?"

Kyoshi smiled in the gloom of his cell. "You must find something worth more to you than your own life, something you are willing to risk everything to protect."

"I - " he started, "I already _have_ people I would die for. Why isn't that enough?"

"I did not say you had to find someone to die for," Kyoshi replied gravely. "There are worse fates than death, Aang, and you must be willing to risk _them._ It is not a simple thing."

"What's worse than dying?" he asked, and she turned to him, face impassive.

"You have already suffered one," she answered. "To be frozen in time while the world around you cries for your help - that is the fate that frightens you most, is it not? To be returned to the ice? You must be willing to face it, willing to _bear_ it, if that is what must be done."

He sighed, and leaned against the wall of the cell, thinking for a moment about that - about Azula's lingering threat, about all the people he had lost, and the ones he still stood to lose. It seemed insurmountable. "Something is going on out there, isn't it?" he asked quietly, nodding toward the door. "Something big is coming. I can feel it."

Kyoshi nodded slowly. "A poison in the air," she murmured, and then shook her head. "There is still time to reverse some of the damage done, but you must learn how to unlock your base chakra so that you may control the Avatar State. Your friends are coming for you, and they _will_ help you, but you must be able to help them in return. Alone, you will fail - as without you, _they_ will fail. And to begin..." she started, and he took a deep breath.

"I have to start earthbending."


	10. Chapter Nine: The Records Room

On _Freedom_

The datapad left a dent in the metal wall.

Jet slumped against the wall of his bunk, staring at the now-broken gadget on the other side of the room. Veniton's, she had said, would explain everything. Veniton's _disease._ The definition burned itself in his eyelids, and every time he closed his eyes, he read it over again: _a degenerative, incurable genetic disorder._

 _With treatment, the patient may live as many as ten years after initial symptoms._

Mai was _dying._

And instead of facing it, instead of spending what time she had left with people who cared about her, she was leaving - he'd never pegged Mai for a coward, but _goddamn it,_ she owed them more than that! Ten years - nine, now that he thought about it, since she'd probably been diagnosed on Sihnon and pulled this same bullshit on her friends, on _Katara,_ there - was all she had left, and she'd rather spend them _whoring_ than -

He took a deep breath, running both of his hands through his hair. He was being unfair, he knew it, but he just - she couldn't -

With a snarl, he slammed his fist against the wall several times and leaned his forehead against it. He knew why he was so angry; it was the same reason he'd gotten mad at Toph when she'd gotten impaled by that Reaver javelin. If he got angry, he didn't have to be scared.

And he knew why he was scared.

He'd been afraid when it had been Bee laid up on his Infirmary bed, when it had been Toph, even when it had been Suki and Ty Lee - but he'd never been this _kind_ of scared. Then, he was afraid that they might die and he'd lose one of his own. Now, he was afraid that she might die and he would never have his _chance._ The bunk swirled in his vision, and the dent blurred into the calendar hanging over his desk, blurred into the old hooked swords that had been in his family forever, blurred into the green tapestry he had near the corner. Mai was dying, and she was leaving, and that was _it._

But she owed _him_ more than that, didn't she?

There was a knock at his bunk door, above him, and he glared at the ladder. He took a deep breath to calm the rage that still shook his body (and the fear threatening to overwhelm it). _"What?"_ he snapped, and Pipsqueak's voice floated down to him.

"Uh, is there a reason you tried to punch out your wall?" he asked.

" _Go away_ ," he snarled, and it came out angrier than he intended it. He ran a hand over his face - it came back wet.

Jet leaned heavily against his wall and pretended that this all didn't hurt.

* * *

At the Fire Nation Palace

Katara stood watch while Toph tinkered with the lock and finally, with a low exclamation of _niúchā!,_ opened the door, and the two of them slipped in. It had been far too dangerous for all of the team - even as reduced as they were - to risk coming in, so Katara had gone, as the member of the palace team with the most at stake, with Toph, who would be needed to break the locks and ensure that no one was going to interrupt them.

"All right," Katara muttered, walking through the short hallway into the round room. It was set up so that the record would come up in the center, on a small platform specially built for this purpose - around the room were all sorts of mechanical bits and pieces meant to facilitate the hologram technology, and opposite the entrance was the computer used to access the records. She walked over to it and brought the list of records up, using Zuko's passcode to get into the system, and then began scrolling through them.

There were millions - Jet had said that Yue hadn't given him much information beyond the passcode, which meant that she had to try everything that was labeled high security. It narrowed her search down quite a bit, but there were still too many to choose from. She growled, and tried a record at random - but when it let her through without requiring another passcode, she knew she had the wrong one.

An image of a girl in a chair came up in the platform, on top of Toph, who cried out and leaped out of the way. "Sorry," Katara said. "That's not it."

"Some of our best work is done while they're asleep," a man on the record said, and Katara ran a hand through her hair. It didn't help that all of the labels were horribly cryptic, things like ACADTAM and BLUESUN17, which surely meant something to someone, but were lost on her.

"What the hell are they doing to this chick?" Toph asked, tilting her head. Katara glanced behind her, and then shrugged.

"I don't know," she replied, "probably something awful."

"Sounds awful," Toph muttered. "You hear her screaming?"

 _No,_ she wanted to sneer, _I don't hear the teenager shrieking in pain and fear behind me_ , but she bit it back. They were on a mission here, and she had to focus - if they were caught here, the whole plan went up in smoke. She began thumbing through records one by one, going onto the next one as soon as one would start; the one she was looking for would stop her.

Finally, it did: MIRANDA, the label read, and it came up with a request for a passcode as soon as she hit it. "Toph," she said. "I found it. Give me the code." Toph handed over the scrap of paper Jet had scribbled Yue's code on, and she punched it in: G-2-3-P-X-1-1-7-8-4-M. The record playing behind her vanished, and she turned - it was replaced by a lone woman, standing, with terror all over her features.

The picture was frozen at the start, and a tinny voice said, "Message from Dr. Ariana Caron, Alliance Outpost 7437, planet Miranda. Message reads." She stared at the picture, confused, for a moment - where was Miranda?

"Toph, have you..." she started, but then the message began.

The woman brought up a series of pictures - all of people, clearly dead, laying in various states of decay around an empty city. "These are just a few of the images we've recorded," she started, "and you can see, it isn't what we thought. There's been no war here, and no terraforming event. The environment is stable." She swallowed hard and continued, voice strained. "It's the Pax. The G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate that _we_ added to the air processors. It was supposed to calm the population, weed out aggression," she explained, and then took a ragged, deep breath. "Well, it _works,"_ she choked. "The people here stopped fighting, and then they stopped... everything else."

Katara stared hard at the pictures on the screen in front of the woman, and felt like she was about to be sick.

"They stopped going to work," the doctor continued, "they stopped breeding, talking... _eating,"_ she said, voice stretched thin. "There's thirty million people here, and they all just let themselves die." There was a roar from beyond the message, and the woman turned to it, and then back to the screen, desperation and terror on her face. "I have to be quick!" she cried. "About a tenth of a percent of the population had the opposite reaction to the Pax. Their aggressor response increased... beyond madness. They have become..." she said, and then choked back a sob. "Well, they've killed most of us. And not just killed, they've... _done_ things," she whimpered, and Katara stepped backwards, hand clamped over her mouth. "I won't live to report this," the doctor said, crying outright, "but people _have_ to know. We meant it for the best, to make people safer." Just then, in the direction the roar had come from, something burst through, and the doctor turned, raising a gun and firing several times. "Oh, _God,"_ she cried, and then held the gun up to her own head - but something attacked her before she could kill herself, knocking her to the floor, screaming.

Katara reached over and stopped the recording then, the doctor's death screams still ringing in her ears.

"Reavers," Toph breathed, and Katara turned to her - she was crying, although she didn't seem entirely aware of it. "The Alliance - they - they _made_ them."

And then they covered it up so that no one would know, lied about the existence of all of it - thrown away thirty million lives! - and now they were going to do it again, to St. Albans. To the last major Independent force in the 'Verse. To her _home._ "Toph," Katara croaked, her shock and horror slowly being taken over by righteous fury. "Help me copy this."

* * *

On _Freedom_

Neither Toph nor Katara had been very forthcoming about what was on the record they'd stolen from the palace. Katara had looked at him with strangely haunted eyes, handed over the chip with the recording, and then she'd disappeared. When he followed her back to her shuttle, he'd found that the door was locked, but he could hear the sounds of someone being sick within.

Sokka, with an ominous feeling he'd never experienced before, took the chip back to the bridge, where everyone was waiting, and put it in to play.

* * *

Toph was touching the engine reverently. She'd made sure that it was in as perfect shape as it could _possibly_ be - Jet could probably keep her running in generally good repair, but if something went wrong, they'd be screwed over, so it was up to her to make sure that nothing was going to go wrong from the engine room. Problem was, she'd done all of that before going into the palace with Katara, so now she didn't have anything to do. She didn't care - she just had to do something, _anything_ to focus on something other than the memory of that doctor's voice, ringing in her ear.

 _There's thirty million people here and they all just let themselves die._

She felt Haru coming in, felt his heart pounding and the shaking in his whole body - everyone's hearts and bodies were doing the same thing, all over the ship. She didn't wait for him to reach her; she went out and caught him by the arm as she passed by, then went to the dining room where Jet was pouring shots of whiskey for the crew.

"How long has this been buried?" Jet asked, when he handed her a shot glass. She knocked it back, and then shook her head.

"I have no idea," she replied, and felt Zuko sink into a seat, holding out his shot glass for a second already.

"I - " he breathed, "I never..."

"No one did," Jet said coldly. "Alliance covered it up. Diana said not even Azula's passcode could get to this, there's no wonder you didn't know."

"You don't," Zuko choked, "you don't _understand._ I _supported_ the Alliance. I thought - I thought it was the right thing," he said faintly.

"And when you're in charge," Toph told him sharply, "it really _will_ be the right thing."

She felt him shift. "You believe in me?" he asked, and Toph nodded, knocking back her second shot and deciding not to go for a third - she wasn't sure when they'd have to move in to get Aang. Phase Three of the plan involved meeting up with Diana, but they had to wait for everyone to digest the information they'd just heard - and for Katara to finish being sick all over her shuttle. Still, time was running against them. It would take most of a day, going hard burn, to reach St. Albans, and if Azula had already given the order...

On second thought, she mused, a third shot would really do wonders for her.

"Take it easy, Tophlet," Jet said, stilling her hand as she reached for the whiskey bottle. "You need a clear head."

She turned away, and swallowed hard. "When do you leave?" she asked, and Jet shifted slightly.

"As soon as the palace team is ready to get off. We need to beat that stuff to the planet."

Privately, Toph thought that it was already too late. Azula didn't seem like the kind of person to wait on something like this. Instead, she nodded. "I'll gather up the rest of the palace team."

They weren't hard to find - except Katara, they were all sitting, still and shaky, outside of the Infirmary. Suki, she noted, was holding Sokka tightly, murmuring that they were going to fix this, that it would be all right - she felt horribly like she was intruding upon something sacred, but if anyone could swallow her lingering horror and whip them into shape, it was Toph.

"C'mon," she snapped. "We're moving out now. I don't know about the rest of you, but I wanna get on with this."

"Yes," Sokka said, voice surprisingly strong in spite of the terrified flutter of his heart. He stood up, still holding Suki's hand with what was certainly a vice grip, and took a deep breath. "We have to - it's time."

She nodded, and together, they all went to the cargo bay - Katara finally left her shuttle, and Toph caught the powerful scent of perfume on her that didn't quite cover up the smell of vomit, but no one commented on it. They all understood.

At the door, Jet stood, watching them gather, and waited for everyone to form into a semi-circle in front of him before he spoke. "All right," he said gravely. "Now we know. Palace team, this is your port. There won't be anything we can do for you once you get off, so check one last time, make sure you've got everything you need. St. Albans team... we're going full-burn the whole way. We stocked up on fuel so we'll have enough to get us there, should take us about a day. Hopefully, by that time, the Palace team will have us a new Fire Lord on the throne who can send help. If not... We'll do what we can."

"And what is that?" someone asked, and it took Toph a second to realize it had been her. She felt Jet turn.

"Anything," Jet replied firmly.

* * *

"All right," Katara said, swallowing hard and wishing she had more water to wash the taste from her mouth, "it's time." She looked around - the palace team was gathered at the now-open cargo bay. No one felt like leaving; it felt too permanent. She glanced at Zuko, to see him watching her with something akin to sorrow, and she reached out and took his hand - if only for a moment, she wanted to forget the distance between them. He clutched her hand tightly, like he didn't want to let go.

Toph stepped forward, making for the street, and they all followed her lead. Small as she was, she was the strongest of all of them, Katara thought - strong enough to take this horror and turn it into something useful, strong enough to fight for the Avatar even though she had everything to gain by giving up the fight and going back to Pelorum, strong enough now to lead the way when they all just wanted to hide.

At the street, though, Toph paused, and took a deep breath, then whirled around and bolted back on the freedom and - it almost made her smile - grabbed the doctor by the shirt and planted a hard kiss right on his mouth. Ty Lee, in what might have been an attempt to lighten the mood, wolf-whistled at them.

Toph didn't laugh. When she pulled away, she glared fiercely at Haru and said, "You come _back."_

"We will," he replied, hand lingering on her cheek, and then Toph nodded sharply and joined them on the street. Freedom's doors closed behind them and the ship that had been home for two and a half months lifted off into the air.

They all stood and watched until she disappeared into the blue.


	11. Chapter Ten: Infiltration

It was Ty Lee who led them through the back streets of Lu'Wong, Sihnon's capital city - she explained that, in the time between her parents' deaths and when she joined the Companion House, she had spent some time, briefly, as a street rat. One of her sisters was still among the back alleys somewhere, although what she did, Ty Lee wouldn't say.

"How much farther?" Toph asked, tapping her foot against the ground. Suki glanced at her.

"A while," she replied, and adjusted Bee's bag on her shoulder - it was at least as heavy as she was. Suki had known that Fire Nation uniforms were bulky and mostly heavy armor, but this was frankly ridiculous. She'd have to pass it off to someone else before long. "Lu'Wong is huge, and we're only on the outskirts."

"No kidding," Toph muttered. "I can't even feel the palace yet."

"It's not really a palace," Zuko said slowly, glancing at Suki. "It's more like a fortress. On Earth That Was, they say it was a whole city."

"The Forbidden City," Ty Lee chirped, reciting some old lesson. "Yup, we're really lucky they didn't do that here, or else it would be even harder to get in!"

"Aren't we lucky?" she said flatly, and Toph smirked.

"Could be worse," she muttered, and took the bag from Suki as though she knew that the weight was starting to get to her - which, all things considered, she probably did. "We could be breaking into my parents' place on Ariel. That's fun."

"I somehow doubt it's more heavily-guarded than the Fire Nation palace," Zuko replied sardonically. Toph opened her mouth to respond, but Katara shushed them both hastily.

"I think we should keep quiet about why we're here," she hissed, and Toph shrugged.

"No one's paying any attention to us," she mumbled petulantly, but fell silent anyway.

Ty Lee brought them to a chain-link fence, which she immediately scampered over and opened from the other side, leading them into a slum - Suki caught sight of several lines of clothes, drying in the late-summer wind, and they dodged a group of kids playing some kind of game with a red ball. People glanced at them as they passed, but didn't comment, and a few people waved to Ty Lee; this had apparently been her home, when she had lived on the streets.

"Hey!" Ty Lee cried brightly, keeling down and opening her arms as a young child ran up to gave her a hug. Suki noticed that she passed a small wad of bills to the child, smiling apologetically. "I'm sorry I haven't been around," she said seriously, "but that's twice what I usually had, so I hope it's enough."

The boy grinned at her, and another person walked up, an older woman who was clearly the child's mother - and must have been one of Ty Lee's sisters, judging from the wide, gray eyes now furrowed with worry and relief. "Ty Lee, you know you don't have to," the woman said, pulling her sister into a tight hug. "We're about to serve dinner, you should join us."

Ty Lee shook her head. "Sorry, but I'm only passing through," she explained, and sounded genuinely sad about it.

"Where have you _been?"_ her sister asked, walking with them (Ty Lee, Suki noticed, was clutching her nephew's hand tightly). "I heard about the scandal at the Companion House, but when I went there, they said you had disappeared. I was so worried..."

"I'm sorry," Ty Lee said fervently, "I couldn't risk sending any messages. I've been on a transport ship," she chirped, and glanced at the crew following her. "We're... kind of on a mission, or I'd talk more, but I've been safe, I promise. Oh!" she said suddenly, and grabbed Suki's arm, pulling her forward. "This is Suki, she's the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors."

Ty Lee's sister tilted her head, but reached out to shake her hand. "I thought the Kyoshi Warriors were gone..." she mused, and Suki smiled thinly.

"Not anymore," she started, but Ty Lee cut her off, babbling excitedly.

"We're starting them up again," she crowed, grinning brilliantly. "I'm the first new recruit. You wanna be the second?"

Suki glanced from Ty Lee to her sister and then back; there was something floating underneath Ty Lee's words, something more than what she was saying - it wasn't just an invitation to join the Kyoshi Warriors, Suki didn't think: it was an invitation to a better life than the one her sister was living. The woman looked a bit apprehensive. "I don't know..." she muttered, looking at her son. Suki knew what she was thinking, that she didn't want to leave her child.

"It's all right," Suki said softly. "We haven't set up a dojo yet, so..." she trailed off, shrugging, trying to convey that it was all right to say no, but that wasn't what the other woman heard.

"Well, if you set it up near here," the woman replied, running a hand through her son's hair, "I would like to look into it. God knows I need to be able to defend myself, and..." she trailed off, as though afraid to give too much away. Something like pain crossed over Ty Lee's face, but it was gone in a flash.

"We can, can't we?" she gushed, glancing to Suki, who shrugged. She hadn't really planned to stay in Sihnon, but maybe it wasn't so bad a place to start as she'd thought; initially, she'd planned to help teach the inhabitants of the border to protect themselves, but something in the woman's face told her that maybe the people of the Core slums needed her help as much as those on the border did. "Right! Once we're done with our mission, we'll set up a dojo here and you can learn! And talk to the other women in the - house," she said hesitantly, and Suki got the strangest feeling that by _house,_ she meant _brothel_ \- a quick glance to the woman's face told her she was right.

"If - if you don't - mind," Ty Lee's sister asked, as though afraid to dream for more than her lot. Suki's chest hurt; such a short time ago, she'd felt the same way, terrified of taking that leap. She smiled as brightly as Ty Lee did, and nodded.

"Not at all. The more the merrier."

"Heartwarming as this is," Toph said sharply, and Ty Lee jumped. "We're kind of on the clock here."

Ty Lee's sister nodded, opening the next gate for them and holding it open. "We'll be waiting," she told Suki, and bowed to her like she was already their leader.

* * *

At the Nire Nation Palace

Yue greeted them at one of the many back entrances to the palace, and rolled her eyes when they showed up - they hardly looked the part, in a few ill-fitting uniforms (and Zuko wasn't even wearing a uniform, the idiot). "You'll need better disguises than that," she said quietly, and pointed to a topiary. "Get behind there, I'll find you some better outfits."

She slipped back in and made for the barracks, rifling through some of her comrades clothes - only one person was in, a somewhat careless woman who lounged on a bed, thumbing through a book.

"What are you doing?" the soldier asked, but didn't sound too concerned. Yue heaved a sigh.

"Some idiot in the marketplace thought it would be funny to throw some tomatoes at Johnson," she said, shaking her head. "I came to get her a new uniform." Johnson was the biggest girl in the barracks, and the only one who might have clothes that would fit Zuko. The woman on the bed laughed out loud.

"I bet that was _hilarious,"_ she said gleefully, "I wish I'd been there to see that bitch get what for."

Yue smirked. "It really was, but she's kind of upset about it. I felt bad, you know?"

The woman snorted and waved a hand. "Whatever, white-hair," she said lightly, and Yue thanked her lucky stars that the people on the tower had just been randomly tossed into barracks upon arrival, and no one in her room actually knew who Private Yang was supposed to be. She hadn't had time to put a lot of work into this particular disguise, and it would fall apart the moment someone realized that the real Private Yang did not have white hair or blue eyes.

Arms full of armor and undershirts, she slipped back through the halls to the back entrance where the others were waiting. Luckily, the road was clear, and she slipped behind the topiary, handing over the clothing to Zuko. "That's the best I can do," she said quietly, and began fixing Katara's outfit so that it sat on her a bit better. Whoever she had stolen the clothes from had a considerably larger rack than Katara boasted, and Yue wadded up one of the undershirts she's snatched from Johnson's trunk, then began to stuff Katara's shirt.

"Um," Katara said dumbly, and Yue glanced at her.

"Fits better now, doesn't it?" she asked, and Katara made a face, adjusting the shirt so that it didn't look lumpy.

"So," Suki said, fixing her outfit as well to match Yue's, "how are we doing this?"

"I've got some things in position," Yue replied, and motioned for Suki to help Ty Lee fix her uniform. "We're going to the main control room, Johnson has security clearance to get in there. I have to make a few copies."

* * *

Aang tried to focus on the earth around him, the way Kyoshi had taught him to do. _Release yourself_ , she had said, _sink into the ground. It will let you in, but not without a fight._

He was starting to think that some people simply weren't made for earthbending, but then, he thought of facing Kyoshi again without so much as managing to shift a single little rock, and _that_ pushed him to try again. He closed his eyes, relaxed, and listened - and there, on the edge of his senses, he could hear the song of the earth, the humming that Kyoshi talked about listening to - it would guide him, she said. It would show him the way. He focused on it and slowly, slowly, it got louder and louder, and he reached out with his senses, reached out into the earth around him, and felt the grooves and the crevasses and the tiny imperfections in the metal and the earth beneath.

He took another deep breath and tried to move them along the cracks that already existed - and there was the smallest of shifts, the barest of beginnings. He opened his eyes and saw that one of the metal tiles of his cell was raised up from a small lip of rock that he had pushed up. He laughed.

"I did it!" he shouted, not caring if anyone heard him - because he knew Kyoshi was watching, and he knew she'd be proud of him. She had told him once that, as far as she was concerned, her greatest accomplishment was the first time she'd managed to make wind, something he'd been able to do for as long as he could remember. That was how it worked, she'd explained, with opposing elements, and once the first step was taken, the rest would come easier.

He sank himself back into the rock, and found it pushed against him at every turn, but bolstered by his first success, he didn't let it discourage him.

Hours later, he had a miniature mountain range breaking through the metal flooring of his cell, and even though he'd seen Toph do way more with a mere stomp of her foot, he was _proud_ of his tiny mountains. This was what Kyoshi had meant, when she had told him that earthbending would give him the confidence he needed to cast off his fear and open the base chakra. He felt like he could do anything: the hardest part was over.

And then his newfound sense told him something more: he felt the footfalls reverberate through the ground of someone coming, and he quickly smoothed over the mountains - they went down much easier than they'd come up - and finished bringing down the very last one right as the door opened.

The crack of light across the floor told him that he hadn't quite managed to make it look normal: the metal tiles were all warped and upended now. It was obvious he'd been earthbending, and worse - his visitor was Azula, watching him with a calculating look on her face.

For a moment, they stayed still, silent, staring each other down, and then Azula smiled.

"The day of reckoning has arrived," she said.

* * *

They followed Diana through the winding halls, occasionally nodding to passing soldiers and, once, stepping aside to allow the Prime Minister of Osiris to pass (he was moving quickly in the direction of the throne room; Suki wondered why he was in such a hurry, and a tight coil of nerves wound itself in her stomach - the time was coming to fight, she could feel it) until they reached the main control room, and used the card on Zuko's clothes to get in. "Hurry up," Diana said quietly, "there isn't anyone here right now, but we only have about five minutes."

"Yue," Katara said, and Suki glanced at her - where did _this_ new name come from? "What are you copying?"

"I put a bug in to record all of Azula's waves," she replied, sliding into a chair and tinkering with the cortex for a moment. "She has the Parliament in the palm of her hands, and I want to have proof that she's not who she says. These recordings," she added, retrieving a small duffel bag that was practically overflowing with small plastic records from a panel in the floor, "will prove to the Parliament that she's lied to them."

"But how does that help us save St. Albans?" Katara asked, and Yue turned.

"It doesn't," she replied darkly.

"What do you mean?" Zuko asked, stepping forward, trepidation on his face. Suki watched Diana - wait, no, Yue - and prayed that she didn't mean what Suki thought she meant.

"She made the order as soon as she came in," Yue said, and Katara staggered backwards, eyes going wide and slowly sinking to the ground. Zuko placed a hand on her back and looked to Yue, who was watching with cold, blank eyes. "Azula made the order as soon as she returned with the Avatar," Yue said, hands shaking as she made copy after copy from the cortex. "Over a week ago. The Pax has _already_ been released on St. Albans," she explained quietly. "All we can do is make her _pay."_

"We still have to get Aang," Zuko said firmly, from somewhere directly above her, and she was vaguely aware of his hand on her back, of the ice-cold floor beneath her knees, but all she could think was of the last time she'd seen her father, of the way they'd never been able to patch things up and now never would, of about a tenth of a percent of the population - her _people,_ her friends, her allies, turned into Reavers...

"Katara," someone said, and she felt a cold hand take her chin. She looked up, into Mai's eyes. There was a kind of empathy there, hidden under the Companion's mask. "We have to get Aang. We need you _here,"_ she said, and Katara nodded. How was it that Mai was always the one to snap her out of things? Perhaps it was because Mai had so much experience with killing emotion before it had a chance to overwhelm her.

"I'm sorry. I never meant..." she said quietly, so quiet that only Mai and Zuko could hear her, and Mai smiled shortly.

"I know," she replied, and helped Katara to her feet.

She took a deep breath, and then turned to Yue. "Where are they keeping Aang?" she asked, voice surprising her with its strength.

"In the holding cell beneath the catacombs," Yue replied, tapping a few keys and standing with her bag full of recordings. "I don't have a key to get in, and she said that even Toph wouldn't be able to break the lock."

Toph barked out a laugh that sounded insincere. "Honey, I don't _have_ to break the lock. I'll just go through the wall."

* * *

"He isn't here," Toph said, before they even arrived at the cell, tapping her feet again to be sure, but still came up blank. There wasn't even a body in the cell, so it wasn't like they'd killed him and left him there. There were, however, a series of uprooted tiles running in random order across the room. Toph tried to focus on them, confused. Diana - or was she Yue now? - turned.

"What do you mean, he isn't here?" she asked, sounding desperate, and Toph shook her head.

"There's no one in the cell," she said firmly, and tapped her foot again to get another feel of the uprooted tiles. There was no earth supporting them, so she knew it wasn't that there had been an earthquake or anything... it just didn't make sense.

"He's not here?" Zuko repeated savagely, turning on Yue, who stammered an apology, but Toph wasn't paying attention.

"But the tiles are all uprooted, it's weird," she muttered, and all of a sudden it hit her, and she grinned. "Wait!" she cried, and they turned. "He _isn't_ here, but he _was,"_ she said, laughing. "The tiles are uprooted!" she repeated.

"What does that mean?" Ty Lee asked, and Toph laughed, something akin to hope flooding her veins.

"He was _earthbending,"_ Toph cried. "The little monkey's been teaching himself earthbending!"

* * *

On _Freedom_

If Sokka was being completely honest with himself, he'd known this was coming all along.

The entire St. Albans crew stood in the bridge, Longshot at the helm, still pushing the ship at full burn. "Sarqaq," the pilot repeated, "this is _Freedom,_ do you copy?"

All they received was static.


	12. Chapter Eleven: Lies and Consequence

_part three_  
At the Fire Nation Palace

Once again, Azula's fingernails dug into his shoulder as she pushed him forward and led him, this time, into the throne room. Ozai was seated arrogantly on the throne, wreathed in flames, with the entirety of Parliament flanking him; he looked a lot more ominous now than he had at the dinner table.

He tried to look at the guards, hoping to see a familiar face - he'd overheard talk of infiltration, and he wondered if Diana had been found out, or if his friends had come for him - but in the long shadows cast by the orange fire, he couldn't tell who any of the guards were.

"Fire Lord," Azula said, and there was something just a bit _different_ about her voice, too subtle and too fleeting for Aang to identify. "The Avatar."

Ozai stood up, face impassive. "Avatar Aang," he said, the picture of congeniality, "have you heard of the tragedy on St. Albans?"

"No," he replied slowly, and Ozai pursed his lips, glancing quickly to Azula, whose grip on his shoulder tightened just a bit. Was he supposed to know something?

"The Pax has been released into the atmosphere there, against Parliament's explicit wishes," Ozai said, like nothing had just passed between him and his daughter. "Do you understand what this means, Avatar?"

"No," he answered, grinding his teeth - but this had to be what Kyoshi had warned him about, the poison in the air. If it had been released... He glanced sideways at Azula, but she looked straight ahead blankly.

"The Pax is a chemical," Ozai explained tersely, and Aang could feel the Fire Lord's blood pressure rising with anger, his heartbeat pounding faster through the ground, and his newfound sense was almost overwhelming, "that calms the population. It was released into the air processors on the planet without Parliamentary - or my - approval sometime within the last two weeks. Do you know anything about who might have given this order?"

He blinked - was Ozai trying to _frame_ him? If so, he was being downright _stupid._ How could he have given any orders from his cell? "No," he replied immediately, and Ozai whirled on him.

"No? And yet, your little ship left for St. Albans almost a full day ago," he said accusingly, and then turned to the Parliament. "I believe that the Avatar is trying to bring down our regime by painting us as monsters."

"How would I even do that?" Aang asked, and Azula's fingernails dug deeper into his shoulder. He winced in pain, and then turned back to Ozai. "I've been locked up in a cell! I don't even know what this Pax stuff is!"

"It's a chemical," one of the Parliament members repeated, face shadowed, "that calms the population until the point that they lose all will to survive. It was intended to help weed out aggression, at which it was a failed experiment. Fire Lord Ozai, you really expect us to believe that a twelve-year-old boy with no knowledge of the inner workings of our government would do such a thing? From a prison cell, no less?"

"All the more reason for him to do it," Ozai explained coolly, apparently unaffected by the unspoken accusation. "The people will not believe that it was him, they will blame us - "

"They will blame _you!"_ another Parliament member shouted.

"No," Ozai countered, "Prime Minister Wong, they will blame us. I assure you," he said, and his heartbeat was rock-steady, "that I had no part in the order to release the Pax."

Aang's eyes widened - Ozai... _wasn't_ lying. He really hadn't... All of a sudden, several things fell into place at once: Ozai genuinely believed that Aang had somehow ordered his friends to do this to their homeland - that was why he'd been so angry when he'd claimed ignorance. Aang had thought for a while that Ozai's plan was to convince the people that the Avatar was a barbaric relic of a dead past - because he honestly believed that Aang was a barbaric relic of a dead past. The claim he was making lined up with Ozai's view of Aang - but if Ozai hadn't made the order, that left only one other player, and the Parliament thought of Azula as the innocent second child of the Fire Lord, who had nearly been killed by her brother while trying to save her father. They would never suspect her.

"You expect us to believe you?" Azula said, outraged, and Ozai whirled around, something unnameable on his face.

"Princess Azula, you speak out of turn," one of the Parliament members said, and Azula scoffed.

"Don't you see, Prime Minister Davíd?" she asked savagely, sounding as betrayed as Ozai looked. "He's trying to paint himself as innocent, to paint the Avatar as some horrid force of ancient evil." Aang froze - since when was Azula on his side? "He thinks to convince the Alliance that we are better without the Avatar, that he is mere barbarian and should be locked up in ice again - I tell you now, Fire Lord Ozai _did_ give the order to eradicate St. Albans, with the explicit plot to frame the Avatar for the horror. It's a thin scheme," she added, sighing, and shot her father a look of malice. Had that been her original plan, he wondered, the one that she had mentioned not needing anymore? "He thought it would work because he thought so little of you, the Parliament, and even less of the Avatar.

"I, however," she continued, stepping forward, "agree with the Parliament's thinking that the arrival of the Avatar should herald a _new_ dawn, a union between the power of the past and the technology of the present. The Fire Lord's sabotage is an ugly blight on this regime, do you not agree, Avatar?" she asked, and Aang's gut clenched shut. She wasn't - no, this wasn't _happening._ "The Avatar is granted power by the gods themselves, and his authority is above ours. What say you, Avatar Aang?" she challenged, pointing to her own father. "Fire Lord Ozai has condemned a planet of fifty million people to death, and he has done so without remorse, then blamed you for it. What will you do?" She sounded hysterical, terrified, desperate.

"Princess Azula," one of the Parliament members said soothingly, and then Ozai snarled.

"You're lying!" he hissed. "I've done no such thing - you suggest that I - " he began, but his voice was lost in the growing chaos from the rest of the Parliament standing and arguing over what was to be done, what had even happened.

Alone of all of them, Azula's voice rang loud in the room. "Avatar, what is your judgment?" she asked, then turned to the Parliament. "We cannot think to stand in the way of the gods," she called. "The Avatar has insight that none of us possess - he alone knows the entire truth, and he alone stands ready to lay down judgment."

"The Avatar is a relic!" Ozai shouted, and Azula looked at him disdainfully.

"As the Water Tribe was a relic?" she countered coldly, and looked to Parliament. "This _can_ be contained," she said in a low voice. "There is no saving St. Albans, but there is a chance to save the Alliance from civil war. The people will demand judgment, and we _must_ give it to them," she added sorrowfully, turning to Aang again. "Your people demand judgment for this crime."

"Fire Lord Ozai," a Prime Minister in green said, "is this true? You gave the order?"

Azula had played so utterly the part of the dutiful daughter - the Parliament wasn't even considering that it might have been her order: she was merely the Fire Lord's daughter, a woman of no consequence. Parliament had been so perfectly blinded by Azula, and she was using it for all it was worth. And here he was - the most powerful being in the known universe - helpless against it.

"I did no such thing!" Ozai yelled, but his tension and fear and sudden realization of the depth of his daughter's betrayal made his voice waver, made him sound guilty.

"He lies," the members of Parliament muttered amongst themselves. "If this truly is the jurisdiction of the Avatar," the green-clad minister mused, "then what does the Avatar say?"

Everyone turned to him - he could tell the truth, but they'd never believe him. They were looking to him for confirmation, not answers: they'd already condemned Ozai, they just wanted him to be the mouthpiece. Still, he had to try. "Ozai isn't lying," he said firmly. "He's telling the truth."

"Then it was you who gave the order?" the same minister asked, and he shook his head.

"I didn't! Azula - it was Azula!"

Azula put on a face of utmost betrayal, and turned to the Parliament. "I would _never,"_ she said emotionally, voice wavering like she was near-tears. "I regret what part I did play in this, for not speaking out against my father sooner. I had thought - " she began, but broke off, shaking her head. "I was _wrong,"_ she said firmly, "to place my trust in my Father, and I will pay for that mistake, I know. Please," she begged, turning back to him, "don't believe his lies."

"You're the liar," Aang replied angrily, and Azula stepped back, tilting her head.

"Members of Parliament, have any of you ever known me to be a liar?" she asked quietly, sincerely, and murmurs of no, Princess Azula swept through the crowd. "The Fire Lord, however, he is a well-known player of the political game, and known to lie when it suits him. Avatar," she said, turning to him with pleading in her voice but ice in her eyes, "the time to act is now," she cried. "Before word reaches the rest of the system about what happened, we need to show them that we are in control, that we have already contained the cause!"

"Stop lying!" Ozai shouted, fire spilling from his lips, but several soldiers ganged up on him, holding him back from lunging at Azula.

"After I protected you from Zuko," she said quietly, sounding for all the world like a heartbroken daughter. "Now I see he was right - you _do_ need to be stopped. What say you, Avatar?" she asked again, barely above a whisper, turning to him. Her facade was so good, he _almost_ believed it - if he hadn't been in the cell on her ship, if he hadn't seen her smirk, if he hadn't heard her claim that his power was less than hers, if he hadn't felt her rage when her father stole her plan... he might have sided with her. "What does the legendary power say should be done?"

"I will not kill him for you," he spat, and silence fell hard in the room. For a single moment, Ozai looked almost relieved, and then Azula turned away.

"I suppose I was wrong to trust in the Avatar," she said softly, "as I was wrong to trust in my father. Does the Parliament agree with my verdict?" she asked, and a wave of assent came from the Parliament. She nodded. "Therefore, as the Princess of the Fire Nation, I hereby find Fire Lord Ozai guilty of _genocide,"_ she called, voice still wavering but eyes hard and cold, and swept her hand into the air - no! Aang thought, recognizing the form in the split second before the lightning crackled in the air around the princess.

"With the power vested in me by the Fire Nation and by the Parliament of the Union of Allied Planets, I hereby sentence you to death for this crime," she said coldly, and brought the lightning down on her father.

* * *

At the Water Tribe city of Sarqaq on St. Albans

The tiniest thread of hope still remained as they touched down in the same ravine as the last time they had been there, but Bee knew better than to think that the Water Tribe might still be intact. She was well acquainted with hope, and with despair, and she recognized the sense of foreboding as they suited up to check on the glittering, icy city - it hadn't failed her yet, no matter how many times she'd wished it would. She'd felt the same sense of foreboding when she landed on Serenity Valley, all the way back to when she'd signed up for the war, and when she'd walked into Azula's tower.

But then, Bee was used to fighting battles she'd already lost. And besides, there was still a chance that some people remained to be saved.

Sokka stood at the walls and pounded on the little door they entered through last time, but no one answered.

"We're not being followed," he said tersely, and turned to the Duke. "Blast the door." The Duke nodded and placed a charge, and they all stepped back as he set it off. Sokka was the first one through the wall, rushing into his home city - only to stop dead in his tracks. "We're too late," he said, voice blank of emotion, as the others filtered in behind him and saw what had stopped him: the body of the man who had greeted them when they'd first arrived, at his station like he'd just lain down to sleep.

"Check for survivors, see if anyone's still standing," Jet said, but Bee glanced to Haru, who shook his head ever-so-slightly.

"He's been dead for a few days," Haru explained. "Azula must have released the Pax as soon as she had Aang."

Sokka whirled on him, face ugly with rage. "Don't you dare - " he snarled, but Jet stopped him.

"We'll _look,_ Sokka," he said gravely. "And we'll lay the dead to rest."

"Sir," she replied, a prickly fear crawling up her spine, "that'll take hours, time we don't have."

"Bee, we've got time," Jet said, and she shook her head.

"No, sir, we _don't,"_ she countered, panic rising in her gut. "Remember the report? A tenth of a percent? They'll _find_ us," she said, "we need to get off the planet and return when the palace team has placed Zuko on the throne."

"If someone's still alive - " Sokka began, and she turned to him.

"Look around you!" she cried. "We are _too late_. It only takes a couple o' days to die of thirst, it's been over a week since the Pax was released. There's no one left to save."

"What if we quarantine the - the tenth of a percent?" Sokka asked, and her heart hurt to see his desperation, his fear. "Could we somehow clear the - the stuff out of them?"

"No," Jet replied. "If that worked, Reavers'd stop being Reavers after a while on their ships."

"Can we _try?"_ Sokka cried, but Bee knew he was too smart to believe it. He was just breaking at the sight of his desolate home.

"Put all of us at risk?" Longshot asked, glancing at him; Longshot, who knew better than any of them what Reavers did, who'd watched it happen to his father. He turned to her, and she could see that he, too, felt the crawling terror rising within. "We don't have room to quarantine anyone. We can at least find the central terraforming station and cut the Pax - that way, it'll be safe to return later, and maybe recolonize."

"We have to get off the planet," she said desperately, glancing around, feeling the eyes of madness upon her - they were coming, she just _knew_ it. "Jet, we have to go - _now,_ before they find us."

"You don't leave allies on the battlefield," Jet murmured, and she wanted to scream.

"This isn't _war,_ Jet!" she cried. "This was a _massacre,_ planned out by Azula. We can't do anything here, but we _can_ get out and get the word out - but only if we leave _now."_

He watched her carefully for a moment, and then nodded. There weren't many times that Bee would openly defy Jet, and he knew that if she was doing so now, it was because she was scared. "She's right," he said. "Let's get off this planet."

Even as he said it, she knew in the pit of her gut that it was going to be too late.


	13. Chapter Twelve: Asura

At the Fire Nation Palace

They were halfway back to the barracks to regroup when the news hit them, sweeping through the palace at a breakneck speed. "The Fire Lord is dead!" a soldier cried, and the words continued to spread from hall to hall, person to person, and Suki turned to Yue, horrified.

"What did we just miss?" she asked, and something in Yue's eyes crystallized into pure determination. She whirled around, setting the duffel bag of records she had just copied on the floor, and began passing them out to passing soldiers, who looked at the recordings, and then at her, confused.

"I had planned to send these to each member of Parliament, but this will have to do," she murmured, and for the first time Suki got a good look at the sheer number of records in Yue's bag.

"When did you make all of those?" she asked, and Yue looked up.

"I started yesterday, when I checked on my bug and found out Azula had already released the Pax on St. Albans. This is my vengeance," she said quietly, savagely. "I told you, Azula's played the Parliament, convinced them that she's the innocent one in the corrupt royal family - I've been watching her carefully since I got onto her ship. Her plan is to frame her father and take his place. Well, this?"

"Proves that she did it," Suki finished, taking several and scattering them through the rooms. "And you want to make sure the word gets out?"

"Exactly. Azula is going to kill me," Yue said, and they all turned.

"You don't - "

"We can - "

"Don't say - "

"Shut up," Yue snapped, cutting off all the protests. "She's been suspicious of me since yesterday, and I can buy you some time. I'm taking one of these copies to the throne room - the rest of you wait to intercept Aang before her soldiers can get him back to his cell, and get this released over the main cortex. I'll get you the time."

"Yue, it doesn't have to be like this," Katara said fervently, stepping forward. "We'll do this together."

"You of all people should understand," Yue replied quietly. "My name, my hair - the moon goddess has guided me here for a reason. I've spent my entire life running from my legacy, but this is _it,_ this is what I'm supposed to do. I'm sure they're crowning Azula now, they'll be taking Aang back any minute now," she said quickly, handing the bag to Suki and clutching one of the recordings tight in her hand. "Get the word out. I'll buy you the time."

With that, she turned and marched away.

* * *

Yue's heart was pounding hard in her ears - the steady mantra of _oh God this isn't fair_ repeated over and over in her head until she couldn't remember which part she was so outraged by: what had happened to her home planet or what was about to happen to her. She slipped into the throne room along with hundreds of soldiers who had rushed in following Azula's sudden coup, as two of them handcuffed Aang's wrists together - he was staring hard at the body that had once been Fire Lord Ozai. Yue watched carefully.

Azula appeared to be crying, but Yue knew cons better than anyone, and she could see that the woman was faking it - she was doing a damn good job, real tears and everything, but it was still just an act.

She locked eyes with the Avatar, and found it in herself to wink.

"Princess Azula," one of the Ministers was saying soothingly, "you did what you had to do."

Yue nodded to Aang, and mouthed _they're waiting for you_. He shook his head - he saw what she was doing - but she nodded. _Don't do this_ , he pleaded, but she could see, in her mind's eye, the Yue she had been named for, taking the place of the dead moon spirit, sacrificing her life, her love, her _humanity_ to save the whole world and keep the Water Tribes alive.

 _Yue, I failed_ , she thought, _I couldn't save them, I couldn't do what you did._

But then she'd always been a failure, compared to the perfect martyr, the Water Tribe's very own saint and goddess. She was no one's saint, no one's savior, but at least she could be their avenger, here at the bottom of things.

"Has she convinced you that she's innocent?" she called out, and the whole room turned to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Aang being pulled away, out of the room, toward the waiting arms of Toph and Katara and Zuko and Suki and Ty Lee and Mai. Azula's eyes widened and then narrowed into vindication.

"Who are you?" one of the ministers said, laying a protective hand on Azula's arm, and Yue smirked.

"I'm the last Water Tribe princess, a direct descendant of the legendary moon goddess Yue herself. I infiltrated Azula's ship in an effort to save the Avatar from her and I," she said, raising the recording, "have proof that Princess Azula made the order to destroy my home, right here."

"You're wounded," Azula said warmly, "by what my father did. That's no reason to take this out on me, we can work together to - "

"On this recording," Yue shouted over Azula's words, "are all of Azula's incoming and out-going waves from the past week. You can watch her laugh at the destruction of the 'barbaric Water Tribe _bái chī_.' Or maybe you'd like to watch her talk about how she has the Parliament under her thumb? There's plenty to choose from."

All of the warmth left Azula's face.

"Fire Lord Azula," the minister said, "is any of this true?"

Azula walked forward, and held out her hand to Yue. "Hand that to me," she said coldly, "and I'll be generous, and let you live."

Yue laughed out loud. "You've been _played,_ Princess," she laughed. "If I can make one copy," she asked airily, "what's to stop me from making ten? Fifty? A hundred? I've already got copies of this scattered throughout the entire palace. By the time you kill me and destroy this one, _everyone_ will know."

The princess - Fire Lord, whatever - shrugged then. "Fair enough. I had hoped it wouldn't come to this."

"Fire Lord, is she telling the truth?" the same minister asked, and she sighed.

"Why are you even asking?" Azula asked loudly, stalking over to her father's body and poking it with her toe disdainfully. "Of course it's true. And if I can't contain the information, then why try?" Yue's whole body tensed as Azula raised her hand and brought an arc of lightning circling around her. "Nevermind the games, then, my dear barbarian princess," she said sardonically. "Although I admit, you play a good one."

Yue closed her eyes.

* * *

Katara tried to run after Yue, but Suki stopped her bodily, crashing into her and dragging her back behind the corner they were behind. "She knew what she was doing," Suki hissed. "We have to get these to the public."

"We have to save her!" Katara cried, and it was Ty Lee who spoke up.

"She'd be really mad if she died for no reason," she said, and Katara turned. "She went in there to give us time to spread the word. That's what we have to do."

Toph snatched the duffel bag from Suki and marched purposefully in the direction of the control room. "I'll get this done," she said. "The rest of you, get Aang out of their slimy clutches. I'll be back in five minutes."

Katara took a deep breath, trying to still her raging mind - she still couldn't wrap her head around what had happened to her planet, and now the last Water Tribe princess had just walked into the lion's den to die and did this mean that she and Sokka were the last living members of her people? She swallowed hard around the miasma of emotions rising in her throat, trying to control them with little success, and nodded sharply. "Let's get Aang," she said, and Suki peered around the corner.

"They're coming with him," she reported, and Katara didn't think; she reached out - Hama's spindly form, using power borne of ugly _rage_ that made her sick to use but threatened to poison her if she didn't do _something_ \- and stopped all the guards in their tracks. A part of her _screamed_ to rip the blood out of their veins, make them _pay,_ but she choked it back and released the guards as soon as they let go of Aang. She then reached up and tore the water out of a pipe and formed it around her in an ever-growing ribbon, and glared.

" _Get out of here_ ," she snarled, who took one look at her and fled.

"Aang!" Ty Lee cried, and bounced forward, then stopped at the chains around his hands. "Oh, darn," she huffed. "Well, Toph will be back in a few minutes and she can - "

Katara pulled a tendril from her ribbon of water and used it to slice straight through Aang's bonds. He looked up at her, and his eyes were hollow, killing the boiling rage within as quickly as it had come. He just looked so lost and scared and _small._ "Katara..." he said quietly, and she dropped the water, suddenly bone-tired, and stumbled forward, pulling him into a tight hug - he had just watched at least one person die, and she knew that he'd heard about St. Albans. "It's my fault," he whimpered, and she pulled him away from her, staring hard into his face.

"No, _bao bèi_ ," she said firmly, "this is _Azula's_ fault."

* * *

On St. Albans

Sokka felt sick to his stomach as they retreated through the gates. He understood, consciously, that Bee was right, that it was too risky to stay, but every instinct he had ever relied on screamed to find _someone_ \- he couldn't be one of the last living Water Tribe members - he just couldn't - the Water Tribe was _ancient,_ stretched back beyond the Age of Bending, and had always, always, _always_ stood for independence.

And now they, like the Earth Kingdom, like the Air Nomads, were dead, too.

Another win for the Alliance. Another win for the Fire Nation.

He was almost glad when the Duke cried out that there was movement on the other side of the plains, coming for them. The others took off at a run, but he stood stock-still, gun at the ready. Let them kill him, he thought, let them tear him limb from limb.

But it wasn't to be - someone grabbed him forcibly by the arm and _threw_ him forward.

* * *

Longshot looked backward, and saw himself - a young man, wounds all fresh and raw and searing, looking into the faces of Reavers and _not caring_. But Sokka had so much to live for: a sister he'd searched the heavens to find and found half-broken, a lover who needed his moral support so she could be strong enough to be selfish and weak sometimes, an ages-long legacy of his people that he now had to carry on.

Bee was busy, shouting at the rest of the crew, waving them on, pushing them forward, forward, forward - Bee's rallying cry, _go forward_ \- onto the wide-open hull of the ship, and he saw the shape of the future as it began to unfold.

 _I'm sorry, Beatrice._

He didn't go forward, this one time; Marcus Alleyne went back, back like Jet always wanted to go, back like he never, ever had, and grabbed Sokka by the arm, shoving him with all his might away from the Reavers.

"You have to go!" he shouted, taking aim at the nearest one, who looked terribly familiar - too recently gone mad to have scarred into anonymity - and it was a perfect headshot, as always.

Sokka made a noise like a dying animal.

"Get the ship off the ground!" he screamed, and out of periphery he saw Jet running full-tilt toward them.

It seemed he had also seen the shape of the future, but Jet was never the sort to just let things go.

He shot without much concern to aim into the oncoming knot of them - small, he thought, just the advance guard, and maybe they could finish this group off before their friends showed up. Sokka seemed to have come a bit back to his senses, in a way: he was shooting with abandon, fighting back even through the haze, but Sokka didn't really have it in him to kill the people who still looked like his friends.

And they'd need a pilot, unless they got very lucky in the next few minutes.

Their backward momentum brought them in-line with Jet, who worked to cover their retreat, but he was already bleeding from somewhere in his abdomen. He shoved Sokka forward, where he almost bowled over Bee, and he shouted for him to get the ship in the air while he went back to help Jet get aboard.

"Jet, get on the ship!"

"Get her in the air!"

He saw it coming in the blink of an eye, from the _side,_ beyond where Jet could see through the helmet of his space suit, and he lunged. His hand made contact and he saw Jet shout as he hit the ground.

He heard Bee screaming his name.

* * *

At the Fire Nation Palace

Katara looked to Zuko - Azula was in the throne room with the Parliament, and who knew what she was doing, but they had to wait for Toph to return. They'd need her earthbending if they wanted a chance at stopping Azula and all the soldiers she had in there with her. Ty Lee and Suki were waiting on either side of the little group, fans already at the ready, and Mai was checking on her crossbow, ensuring that all of its bolts were in place, while Aang stood beside Katara, face pale but eyes determined.

She wished she had some advice for him, some clever trick to give him, but they were at the wire here, and there was no time left for lessons.

"I'm here," Toph snapped, and Zuko nodded, leading the way into the throne room.

It was remarkably calm within - there were already several lightning-studded bodies strewn about, and it seemed like no one wanted to risk making Azula any angrier than she already was. Katara recognized a few of the people cowering behind the throne as members of Parliament, and she didn't fail to notice the glimmering white hair of one of the bodies. It was the last straw for Katara's already-frayed nerves.

Rage, held back and pushed down and bottled up since Yue had told them it was too late for her people, boiled up and over inside of her, and she let out a cry, lunging for Azula, blind in the haze of red over her mind. The princess turned, and she saw her eyes widen as Katara wrenched on her blood, holding her in place, but then something tackled her from the side - a guard.

It was like the levee broke then, and chaos took over. Azula's soldiers attacked them almost as one - she heard the rhythmic _thunk_ of Mai's crossbow and the _ratatat_ of gunfire meant to push them behind cover.

She heard Zuko shout something to his sister - she could make out the words _agni kai_ , but the meaning was lost on her - and then the guard attacking her was thrown off his feet by a gust of wind and Aang joined her, standing against her back. They were surrounded by guards.

"I'm sorry," she gasped, and Aang shook his head.

"It's all right," he replied quietly, and together, they tore the water from the pipes and it rained down on them, putting out the fire that had shrouded the throne - distantly, she was aware of the politicians hiding behind the throne letting out a cry and running - and together, they began to attack the soldiers between them and Azula, but there were so _many._

She looked around the room, eyes clearing slowly from the rage that still burned her veins: Ty Lee and Suki were back to back on the other side of the room, and she saw Mai sniping any soldier that tried to attack Zuko.

Zuko, in the center of the hurricane, staring down the princess.

* * *

"I challenge you to an Agni Kai for the throne," he told his sister, but she scoffed.

"You come in with your water witch and demand a fair fight?" Azula asked, ugly fury on her face. "We have no deal. Unless," she added lightly, and brought her hand around her in that form, the one he'd never been able to perfect, and lightning swirled around her. He knew what she was going to do the instant before she did it, and horror crawled up his spine - _Katara!_

He dove to where she was standing, Aang beside her, and managed to push her aside and knock both of them away as the lightning crossed the place where she had been mere seconds ago - and he was now.

* * *

Aang heard Katara scream, saw Zuko hit the ground - his heart was still beating, if erratically and uncontrollably, he was still alive - followed almost instantaneously by a shield of rock and metal from Toph, a last-ditch attempt to block part of the lightning blast - and he took a deep breath, then brought a little tent of rock up around himself.

Kyoshi had said he would know the time to release the Avatar State, whether under his control or not, when it came - it was time.


	14. Chapter Thirteen: Something Worth More

Toph felt Azula's bending and heard Zuko shout, and immediately pulled up the floor to block what she could of the lightning bolt - it wasn't much, but she hoped desperately that it was enough. Katara screamed and bolted for the ridge that Zuko was now behind, and Toph took a deep breath, pulling up a miniature mountain range to throw Azula off as she made for Zuko, to finish him off.

Master of Fire versus untrained prodigy of Earth. Not the most even of odds, but she'd faced worse.

Azula whirled on her, and Toph felt her heartbeat as she stumbled, a thrumming against the ground, pounding and reverberating in Toph's mind, a direct beat to contrast the chaotic hearts that surrounded her - Azula wasn't even afraid.

Well, she thought, time to change that.

She pulled on the earth and felt it yield to her, tearing apart the throne room and giving Katara room to move - she felt the water pouring from the pipes all over her, and neither Katara nor Aang was touching it, and what was Aang _doing?_ \- as Azula shot fire from her feet and hands to dodge the rock and twisted metal, Toph merely brought up more to stop her, another pillar, higher this time, knocking her off-balance.

She felt someone coming up behind her, and just as she turned to stop the guard, a bolt _thunk_ -ed into him and Mai was there behind her. Unfortunately, her break in concentration had given Azula time to lunge for Katara.

* * *

Suki didn't watch Zuko go down, but several of the soldiers she was fighting did, and she attacked them, taking them out while they were distracted. She tried not to go for the kill - after all, these were just grunts confused over which royal they were supposed to be fighting for, or, indeed, what the hell had even happened.

"Ty Lee," she yelled, "Help me out!"

Ty Lee jumped, from where she'd been standing, distracted for the moment, watching Zuko in horror, and joined her. "Suki, you're hurt!" Ty Lee cried, but she shook her head.

"It's a flesh wound," she replied. "You remember all the practicing we did, with the pressure points?"

"I don't know if it'll work," Ty Lee said fervently, helping Suki stand up straight - god, but her knee was _killing_ her.

"It's worth a try. Someone _has_ to stop Azula, even if it only holds a minute."

"What about Aang?" she asked, glancing at the rock tent. Suki made a face - she had no idea what Aang was doing in there, but she knew better than to assume that he was going to come out of it perfectly well and shooting bolts of lightning out of his ass. Suki knew war, and she knew the value in expecting the worst.

"Assume that he's out of it," Suki replied, voice hard. "I will get you to Azula."

* * *

Katara dove behind one of Toph's ridges, still staring at the place where Zuko was - Azula had to know that it was merely a case of waiting Katara out now, that if he _was_ still alive, he was running out of time. She wrenched a torrent of water from the pipes and brought it down on the place where Azula had been moments ago, but she wasn't there.

Toph chose that moment to attack Azula, giving Katara time to cross the battlefield. It was difficult; Toph's earthbending had turned the throne room into an obstacle course. She was almost there when something broke Toph's concentration and a jet of blue flame came rushing towards her

"Dammit!" Katara cursed, and dove to the side, watching the princess pick her way through the rubble toward her. Why had she attacked Azula? Why hadn't she been able to control herself? Why hadn't she waited for Zuko to say something, to challenge Azula properly, to - anything?

This was pure _suicide._ And what was Aang _doing?_ Why wasn't he helping?

* * *

In the rock tent he had constructed, he closed his eyes tightly and took a deep breath - Kyoshi had told him that he needed something worth more to him than his own life - there it was, there were his friends, his allies, his _family,_ fighting to stop Azula right in front of him. He was through being scared, he was through playing lock and key for the power that could save them, he was through being a frightened child cowering while others fought for him.

He was ready to let go of the fear that gripped him when he thought of the power, what he might do if he lost control - and even of the threat that awaited him if they failed, Azula's old threat to put him back in ice. He was willing to risk it, to take that chance.

He could hear the madness, the noise and the rage and the _scream_ of the Avatar State rising within him as he relaxed and let the fear and the stiff control he'd been using to hold it back fall away - it struck him like a physical blow, overwhelming him in one sudden wave.

It wasn't in his control, not really, but he had at least enough clarity to steer.

He was acutely aware of _everything_ \- there was Zuko's weakening heartbeat, and there was Katara running from ridge to ridge, trying to gather enough water to stop Azula and save Zuko, and there was every bullet in the air, the trajectory warped as they were absorbed into the cyclone he was only vaguely aware he was making, and there were Suki and Ty Lee, each with their fans out, attacking the Alliance soldiers back-to-back as they made for the princess, and there was Mai, nerves shaking in her skin as she held the illness at bay and struggled to give Katara an opening, and there was Toph, constructing walls and ridges and mountains in the floors to trip up Azula and give her allies cover.

And there was Avatar Roku at the volcano, his best friend's betrayal.

And there was Avatar Kyoshi at the island, tearing it away from the mainland to stop the conqueror.

And there was Avatar Kuruk at the spirit oasis, screaming for his wife.

And there was Avatar Yangchen at the Western Air Temple, pulling the air out of men's lungs to stop their attack.

And there was Avatar Aang at the Southern Air Temple, using Yangchen's method to stop the Fire Nation from killing his people. And there was Avatar Aang beside a young woman named Hama, repelling the Fire Nation from the Southern Water Tribe. And there was Avatar Aang at the Earth Kingdom, using a dead technique to bend away a Fire Lord's abilities. A thousand different ways the story could have gone appeared to him in a flash, a thousand different ways he could have saved his world if he'd woken up sooner, a thousand different people who were dead because of him.

 _Do the job, xaio hóuzi_ , someone in his head said, and he could have sworn it was Toph's voice.

He opened his eyes, forced the noise to dim to a dull roar - and he looked to Azula.

* * *

Katara watched in awe as Aang rose from the little rock tent, eyes and tattoos glowing brilliantly, and directed all the screaming, flying bullets into the walls or floor beside each and every soldier. The warning was clear - _I can kill you where you stand_ \- and all of a sudden, the fighting stopped cold. Azula looked to him, and raised her hand in that awful form, but something struck her from behind, and she collapsed - Ty Lee and the anti-bending technique she'd been learning for just this purpose. Azula snarled at the girl that had once been her friend, and tried to get up but found that she couldn't.

"Azula," Aang said, and it was his voice but it was also a thousand other voices; all of the previous Avatars, she realized, speaking through him. "You wanted to see the power of the gods. Foolishly, you mocked it. Foolishly, you assumed that _you_ outclassed it."

Azula tried to rise again, making more headway this time, but Aang brought the rock up to swallow her. Katara snapped out of it and ran to where Zuko was laying, behind Toph's rock face, and she pulled on the water around her, holding it to his abdomen. His eyes fluttered open and he tried to speak, but she stopped him. "Shh," she whispered, crying, "don't try to talk."

"But," the Avatar said, and the sound of _Aang_ was stronger, "I am not going to kill you."

"I'm - sorry," Zuko breathed, but she pressed the water into his abdomen - he was so lucky, if it had struck him in the heart, or the head, or the spine... "I thought - "

"It's all right," she whispered. "You'll be all right." She didn't know if it was true, but she would do everything possible to save him, and nothing could stop her. He - he had nearly died, and for her, for the whore from the Water Tribe - she blinked back tears, the water sinking into the raw wound.

Aang's voice echoed through the throne room. "You asked what the Avatar's judgment would be for the eradication of the Water Tribe, and this is it: You have used your people, treated them as vessels for your own devices, and so it is to _your people_ that you will answer," he declared, and she looked over to see him bring up the tiles from the floor as makeshift shackles. He glanced to the side, to her, and nodded.

Katara helped Zuko to his feet, and slowly, the glow dimmed from Aang's eyes.

Azula wrenched against the manacles, lunging for Aang with fire pouring from her lips, but Toph brought up a whole mountain of rock and metal around her. Katara helped Zuko stand up straight, and Aang turned, but he wasn't glowing - just making sure they were all alive and well.

"This isn't fair!" Azula spat, eyes just this side of mad. "You can't take my throne from me!"

"Yes, I can," Aang replied coldly, "And yes, it is. That's why you're angry."

* * *

On St. Albans

Beatrice Alleyne was not one to ignore the things that were right in front of her; she was not one given to reeling shock and _this can't be happening_. She had always been firm, grounded, and pragmatic. So she had no idea what to do when that rock of sensibility was wrenched out from under her as Longshot fell to the ground.

She stumbled forward in a haze, the world suddenly seeming a lot quieter and stiller and redder, eyes on the javelin in her husband's chest, and some tiny part of her said _but Katara can heal him, can't she?_

He wasn't moving, not at all, not even breathing, but the knowledge of that fact wasn't connecting with anything in her head.

"Marcus, baby, you have to get up," she heard herself saying, as she knelt down beside him, shaking him a couple of times. Distantly, she was aware of someone screaming her name, but it wasn't Longshot's voice and so it didn't matter.

It wasn't until the shrapnel hit her in the stomach that it all shattered into a kind of focus.

Jet was screaming at her, bleeding badly, but shooting into the Reavers - protecting her, she thought in that same distant way, while she wasn't there to protect herself - with some success, but he was faltering, and dimly, she saw him hit the ground in a way that suggested he probably wasn't getting back up any time soon. She ignored him, and picked up Longshot's gun.

With stone-silent accuracy that might have alarmed her if she'd been aware enough to focus on it, she began killing the Reavers one-by-one. Without the haze of panic that had clouded hers and everyone else's judgments, in that tranquility that only true madness can inspire, she made rapid work of them, until she ran out of bullets.

And then she just went after them with the gun itself.

Or would have, if someone hadn't grabbed her by the arm and hauled her backwards.

It was around then that she became aware that she'd been screaming, and that she'd been shot and slashed with spears several times.

Someone had already pulled Longshot back into the cargo bay, and someone was starting the ship, and someone was trying to talk to her, and someone was still firing long, white-hot bursts of plasma into the Reavers, and all she could think of was that it was only a few of them when she'd first seen them coming.

But they smelled blood like sharks did, and swarmed like locusts.

And they'd killed Longshot.

And there were still some of them down there - and they were rising up away from them and _she couldn't kill them from here_ -

"Bee, please, calm down," Haru was saying, holding her by the arm. "You're badly injured, I need to get you to the infirmary."

She looked around her: the Duke was standing by the Maria Mark Three, face white behind his helmet, eyes on Longshot; Pipsqueak was kneeling by Jet, with Jet's blood all over his shoulder like he'd just carried him in; Jet was breathing heavily but not standing, staring just as hard at Longshot as the Duke was; Haru was by her side; Sokka must have been the one piloting the ship; Longshot was -

\- gone.

All of it, all of their plans for the future, all of her stupid little dreams of maybe having kids of her own with him someday, maybe making a new world that didn't have any war, all of his little smiles, all of their date nights, all of - all of _everything_ -

The world seemed to be getting darker, although she didn't know if it was blood loss or despair or both.

"Bee, _please,"_ Haru said.

"Take care of Jet," she croaked, and he looked between the two of them.

"You're both in about the same con - "

" _Take care of Jet._ "

"Bee, c'mon," the Duke said softly, trying to take her by the arm to help her to the infirmary the way Pipsqueak was Jet, but she was having none of it. She slapped his hand away and crawled - it was all the movement she had left in her - over to her husband's body.

"Just leave me here," she murmured, and blacked out.


	15. Chapter Fourteen: A New Beginning

Three days later, at the Fire Nation Palace

They locked Azula in the cell that she had trapped Aang in, and scheduled her a trial, a proper one, which seemed important both to Aang and Zuko, and declared that there would be a state funeral for the deceased - particularly Yue and, at Aang's insistence, Ozai, and if _Freedom_ returned with any bodies - before he would take the throne. He also got Toph to craft a monument to the Water Tribe, upon which all of the names of those who had died would be listed, once they had the records from St. Albans.

When asked, he explained that he wanted to pay his debt to those who had sacrificed to bring him to the throne.

He showed the entire 'Verse what had happened, using the record from Miranda and the records that Yue had copied, to show them what had happened, and why it had happened, and he vowed that nothing of the sort would ever happen again. His first decree as Fire Lord, he said, would be to eradicate all extant samples of the Pax.

The whispers of rebellion continued, but at a lower pitch with Zuko in charge, and being completely up-front about what had happened. It helped that Jun was on their side and could vouch for his determination to protect the 'Verse - she wasn't well-known for having a fondness of the royal family or the Alliance in general, so it meant quite a bit to a lot of people that she stood behind them.

 _Freedom_ returned three days after she left, bearing the body of her pilot. Jet and Bee were alive, Sokka explained, but in bad condition, and several of them had been shot in a few places.

Nothing in Sokka's report told them anything new about the planet, but it still burned inside of Katara to see the truth painted on her brother's face.

"And Dad?" she asked quietly, reaching out to take his hand. Sokka shook his head.

"He was dead before we got there," he replied.

* * *

Bee really shouldn't have been capable of getting up, but there was no missing this, even though a tiny part of her - the part that had thought Katara might heal him - didn't want to go at all. What she really wanted was to go back to her bunk and find him there, lounging and reading some magazine and looking up and smiling softly.

But even if she could have gotten down the ladder, there was no going back to that room. Not for a while, at least.

She kept replaying that moment in her mind, over and over and over again, the split second where she might have been able to change things - if she'd gone back for Sokka instead of him, if she'd grabbed him and pulled him into the cargo bay, if she'd been quicker on the uptake and gotten them all back to the ship first, if she'd gotten them to land closer to the city, or further away, or, or...

It was nice of Toph, and of Zuko, to make a monument to all the citizens of St. Albans, and all those killed by Azula's coup, but it wasn't enough. Just names on a wall, and what were names to these Independent tatters left behind after the wars?

She had refused to give them his real name. It belonged in his _home,_ not on an Alliance planet where purple-bellies could look at it and never know anything about who _Marcus_ was, or why _Longshot_ was different. She'd always wanted him to use it, always believed that he deserved it, but it was _his,_ and it didn't belong on an Alliance monument in an Alliance city on an Alliance planet.

"We'll make another monument somewhere else," Toph started, but Bee didn't want to hear it, let alone explain why. Someone else spoke for her, though.

"The best memorial you can give them," Mai said softly, "is to let them rest in peace. Leave them _be."_

Bee glanced sideways at the Companion, who didn't look at her, and she wondered at the _knowing_ in her words.

They stood stock-still at the trio of biers and watched with dry eyes as Zuko stepped forward.

"Too much has been lost," he said slowly, loud enough for the crowd gathered in the square to hear, "for mere words to ever be sufficient. Marcus Alleyne, pilot of the ship Freedom."

Jet nudged her from the other side and they limped forward, although who was leaning on who was hard to say, and Mai handed them each a long stick - incense, she realized, an offering to the deceased - which Zuko himself lit with a touch of his fingers. She took a deep breath, swallowed the knot in her throat, and walked forward to lay the incense beside Longshot. Jet seemed to linger, looking at his pilot and long-time friend as though he might get up and mock him for his sentimentality; Bee couldn't stand to see him like this, cold and still and lifeless, and turned away first, nodding to Zuko.

After a long moment, after Jet had stepped back away, Zuko moved in that single form he had performed all the way back at Iroh's funeral outside the Water Tribe, and lit the bier. Bee didn't watch it engulf him.

Forward, she thought to herself. Always look forward, especially when you want nothing more than to look back.

But what was in the future, without her husband?

"Yue, the Princess of the Water Tribe," Zuko said loudly, indicating to the second bier. Mai walked away and handed a stick of incense each to Katara and Sokka, the last known members remaining of the once-thriving culture. "In honor of her entire people."

Katara was crying openly, if silently, when Zuko lit the two sticks of incense and they stepped forward, placing them beside Yue's body, her brilliant white hair untarnished by the lightning's char, and again performed the single movement, enveloping Yue in the flames. And then he turned to the third bier.

"Fire Lord Ozai," he said, with some hesitation, but Aang nodded at him. "May he rest in peace." It seemed to be all that he'd been able to come up with to say; Bee had heard the story from Aang, that Ozai had been murdered by his daughter and _yes_ he was evil, but he still deserved the dignity of a proper funeral. It seemed important to Aang.

Bee thought it was disgusting that he was up there beside Longshot, as though they'd been equals in life, but maybe that was the point Aang was trying to make - everyone was equal in death, the evil and the good and everything in between.

Zuko lit two sticks of incense and handed one to Aang, and they both walked up and placed them beside the Fire Lord's body; Aang paused for a second, murmured _I'm sorry_ , and then walked away to join them right before Zuko lit the third bier.

"Why'd you apologize?" she asked him, looking anywhere but at the smoke twisting toward the sky.

"I couldn't help him," Aang replied.

"He was evil, he wanted you dead."

"He was a person," he countered, and she noticed that he was _not_ looking away from the fires - everyone else was, Katara was crying into her brother's shoulder and Zuko was saying something to the crowd, and Jet was looking down like he felt ashamed (and a small part of her felt like he _deserved_ to feel ashamed, but she ignored it), and everyone else was either looking at each other or at the crowd or at their own feet, but _Aang_ was watching. "That counts for something, at least to me. All life is precious." He paused for a moment, and then: "He should be at peace now."

This he said in a different tone of voice, and Bee glanced at him, so he went on.

"Marcus," he said, and she flinched in spite of herself. "He should be at peace," he went on, pointing at the sky. "His soul is one with the sky now."

She opened her mouth to say that she didn't believe in souls, but then she looked up to where he was pointing, at the tendrils of smoke swirling into the wind and floating away and it was exactly the kind of afterlife he would have wanted: to fly off into the sky, always and forever free.

* * *

Zuko had decided that they would return to St. Albans with a full battalion to take out the remaining Reavers before they could attack any settlements, and then to lay the rest of the Water Tribe to rest. It was, he supposed, all he could do.

He didn't hide anything from the people: he described the Reavers, and how they would have to deal with them. He showed them the report from Miranda, and all of Yue's recordings. He called for a vote to dismiss all involved in the scandals and elect new leaders.

It was accepted nearly unanimously; within two weeks, the Parliament was entirely changed out with new members. They were still politicians, and they were still firmly Alliance, but they were as horrified as the rest of the 'Verse by the events on St. Albans and Miranda, and he figured that it would simply have to be enough. It didn't _feel_ like enough - nothing _felt_ like enough - but it was as much as he could do. As a child, he had imagined that the Fire Lord had infinite power, but now he was learning, the hard way, that his power was limited.

He was glad for it when it had been his father in charge, but now he felt like his hands were tied, that he couldn't pay his debts properly. And debts he had - none that the law recognized, but he saw the cost reflected in Bee's eyes, in the bandages around Jet's body, in the hollow darkness in Katara's face. If he had been smarter, faster, if he had stopped Azula all the way before -

It was Sokka who told him not to blame himself, that they had been too late almost from the start, but self-loathing was his demon, and a hard habit to break. Katara was still around the palace, healing Jet's and Bee's wounds and continuing to heal Ty Lee's burn and Suki's knee and his abdomen - she told him it was a miracle he was even alive, if it had struck him a little higher, for a little longer, with a little more force... Neither of them had spoken about it, other than in clinical terms, but the truth hung heavy in the air around them: he had been willing to die for her, hadn't even thought about it, just...

And now, her accounts were unfrozen and the charges had been dropped, so she was free to return to the Companion House and go back to her calm, comfortable life. He wouldn't stop her, he decided. Katara had a life to live of her own, and she deserved the freedom to choose her own path. He wanted her to stay, so much it _hurt,_ but it simply wasn't his choice to make.

He was in the middle of drafting up the details of the proposal to return to St. Albans - he had no intention of forcing anyone to go: the mission would be purely voluntary - when someone knocked on the door. He looked up.

"Come in," he said, and Katara walked in hesitantly, a pot of tea in her hand. She smiled wanly.

"Tea?" she asked.

He looked at her - she looked tired, and worse for wear after the events of the past weeks, but in her eyes was determination and an incredible strength, and she looked like she was ready to move on. That thought frightened him more than he could express. "Thank you," he said quietly, and she placed the tea tray on his desk, then sat opposite of him. "You know you... don't have to stay," he murmured, the words trying to stick in his throat, as she poured two cups.

"I know," she replied, and looked up. "But I want to."

Zuko smiled.

* * *

It took a while to fix the ship up, even with Zuko's people helping Toph do the heavy lifting - pushing her at full burn from the Core to the Rim had nearly run the engine ragged, and she'd barely limped in during the return. It still felt wrong, Toph thought, to feel out the shape of Freedom and recognize the lack of Longshot.

The whole thing felt strange, when she thought about it - three months ago, she'd been the caustic mechanic who didn't give a damn about anything and knew that bending was a myth. Now, she was well on her way to being a master earthbender (Zuko had even pulled some strings with the Alliance to get her the scrolls that had taught the Operative, which she and Aang were planning to work through together), had patched up her relationship with her mother, and forged a series of friendships that she didn't think could ever be broken.

If someone had asked her what she thought about Iroh and his box, if she regretted calling out to him and inviting him to join them, she honestly didn't know what she would say. People had died - good people, and too many to count - but at the same time, the Alliance had a new series of leaders, Azula was going to face her people for her crimes, and the Independent factions on the Rim were even sort of placated by the new regime. There were still pockets of rebellion and simmering anger, and she figured there probably always would be, but war had been averted, and that was good enough, at least for now.

Aang would come with them to clear St. Albans and lay its dead to rest, and continue to fly with the crew - doing only legal missions now, or at least as long as the Avatar was with them - until he had mastered earthbending, and then he would go back to Sihnon and learn firebending from Zuko. He'd already put out a bulletin that the parents of any child showing bending talent should send a message either directly to him or to the Fire Lord, and they would arrange to build dojos across the worlds with copies of Katara's waterbending scrolls, the earthbending ones Zuko had dug up from the Alliance, and a series of scrolls that Zuko was putting into writing, of all the firebending katas he had learned. With Aang adding his airbending knowledge to the table, soon enough, they expected the art as a whole would experience a resurgence, and perhaps - just perhaps, Aang had said, trying not to sound _too_ hopeful - a whole new Age of Bending could begin.

Already, they had received dozens of waves from the Core of children showing talent in the four elements; it seemed that Iroh had been correct about the reawakening of bending with the return of the Avatar, although it hadn't ever really died.

Nothing did, she was learning, not for good. They just grew into something new.

The future was terrifying and big and filled with danger and possibility, but at the same time, it was also completely wonderful, and Toph was more than ready to chase it.

"How is she?" Haru asked, leaning against the doorway to the engine room, in his now-usual place, and she smiled.

"She'll fly true," she replied.

* * *

It was a week after the funeral before Bee spoke to him again.

"I want to hate you," she said very quietly, and he didn't look at her, _couldn't_ look at her. Too much was shadowed there, on her face and under her voice; _he died for you_ , she wasn't saying, _he's dead and I'm alone and it's because of you_.

"Makes two of us," he muttered.

"I can't," she sighed, and he looked up to her, a bit startled, because he was hating himself very well. "We've been through too much, if I wasn't gonna hate you for Serenity Valley, it ain't fair to hate you now."

"I'm sorry, Bee," Jet croaked. It wasn't enough, nothing could ever be enough, but it was at least a start.

"It was his choice," she said, in a distant tone. "He went back for Sokka, I didn't even see him, but - " she sighed heavily and looked away. "I guess he knew what to look for. He'd been there, or as close to as anyone could get. He prob'ly didn't even think about it, just did what he knew was right."

"Still," he replied heavily. "I went back to help him and I just ended up getting - " he cut himself off, and tried to pretend it was because he didn't want to say it in front of Bee, rather than just not wanting to say it at all.

"You _did_ help," she said. "You held them off long enough to get everyone back on the ship. And you had my back when I wasn't there to do it myself."

He flinched; with how out of it she'd been, he didn't think she'd noticed.

"So, you helped. And for that, you deserve my thanks."

"I don't deserve your thanks."

"Well, I didn't offer it, so you can't refuse it," she snapped. "It's just there. You're my captain, and I haven't abandoned you yet and I ain't gonna abandon you now."

She stood up and limped to the doorway; he wondered, a bit distantly, where she was sleeping, but didn't dare ask.

"And, you know what?" she said suddenly. "Take a chance with the Ambassador, would you? At least _one_ of us deserves a happy ending."

He looked away, having just about forgotten all about the Companion and her illness.

"She's sick," he replied. "Dying."

"Isn't everyone?" Bee challenged, and he looked up at her to see a kind of deep strength on her face, and he knew right then that she would be okay - not today, not tomorrow, maybe not even in a year, but she would come through this storm just like she had all the others. She was so much stronger than him. "Take it from me," she said softly, "it's worth havin', even if you lose it later."

There wasn't any decent response to that, but she didn't wait for one, instead limping away and leaving him alone with his thoughts and his ghosts.

* * *

While everyone else worked on _Freedom,_ Sokka took a trip to the slums.

Suki had told him about Ty Lee's sister, about the women who needed something more, about her idea to set up a dojo in the slums and help them, and he wanted to see it all for himself. The idea of living in the Core repulsed him, but Katara was here and if Suki was staying also, then he had no reason to leave.

 _Home_ was, after all, gone.

He tried not to think about it, to focus on planning out where to put the dojo (there was a surplus of officially abandoned buildings around the poorer sections of the city, but they were overcrowded with squatting families) and on finishing Aang's matryoshka doll. It hurt too much to remember.

(And Longshot's last gift - taking that shot, knowing without having to be told that he wouldn't be able to.)

He almost tripped over a child who had run up to him, and he started - he was looking into a pair of familiar gray eyes. "Are you with Aunt Ty Lee?" he asked fervently, grabbing Sokka's pants. "You look like the lady that was with her when she came through."

"Sort of," he replied, kneeling so that he was eye-to-eye with the boy. "I'm looking for a place to start up the dojo she and Suki talked about. You know any places?"

"Yeah!" the boy cried, and then caught himself, reaching out a hand. "I'm Noah," he said. "Mom says I'm not s'posed to talk to strangers, so you gotta introduce yourself before I can take you anywhere."

Sokka laughed, and introduced himself to the boy, who grabbed his hand and bounced (so like Ty Lee bounced) through the narrow streets and alleys until they came to what looked like a warehouse. Immediately, Sokka liked the look of it - it was large, but sturdy, and although a few of the windows were broken and it was in poor repair, that wouldn't be so hard to fix up. All it needed was a little love and attention, and it would be a perfect dojo.

"Mom already scouted this place out," Noah explained, grinning. "She's _really_ excited, and all the rest of the women are talking about it. Everyone's heard of the Warriors of Kyoshi! Is it true," he asked, eyes bright, "that they fight with _fans?"_

"Yeah," he replied, smiling at the kid and the little warehouse. "They're called _tessen,_ you should see them fight with them. It's awesome."

"I can't _wait!"_ Noah crowed.

It wasn't much - none of it was _much,_ just an abandoned warehouse in a slum, just a little boy, just someone else's dream - but it hit him right at the most deeply wounded part of him, the part that had demanded he find his sister, the part that had clung to the doll and the promise to his mother above all else, the part that had died when his people had died, and he had to swallow tears. He now understood why Suki had feared starting the Kyoshi Warriors again, why it had all _mattered_ so much to her. He was afraid; this was a new beginning, and so many things could go wrong, but - this was for Suki, and, he realized, for himself.

"Neither can I," he murmured.

* * *

The packing was going slowly; if she was honest with herself, it was because she didn't want to go. This shuttle had been home for her, in so many ways, and it represented so many things that she wanted and needed but could never have - it represented freedom, and safety, and - and love. She jumped when someone at the doorway coughed pointedly, and turned.

"Jet," she said, surprised to see him walking. His abdomen, arms, and one leg were still bandaged and he wasn't wearing a shirt, but he was there - and he wasn't happy. "You should be resting," she told him, because it was all she could say. He leaned heavily against the wall, expression unreadable.

"So," he began, and he sounded just this side of furious, "I looked up Veniton's," he said, and she turned around quickly, before she could look into his eyes and see more there than she wanted to face.

"I see," she replied slowly, re-folding the same silk hanging that she had just folded - it was the one, she noticed, that was still torn from Aang's air marbles. It felt like a lifetime ago. "Then you understand."

"No," he snapped, and she took a deep breath. "I don't."

"Jet, I can't - "

"What I don't get," he said savagely, cutting off her explanation, "is why you think we'd want you to die alone."

She swallowed hard. "Everybody dies alone," she said quietly. "I watched my grandmother succumb to this, and my mother," she explained, clutching the cloth in her hands so tightly that her knuckles were white. "I will not - " she released the breath she had been holding. "It isn't exactly the most dignified way to die," she said finally. It wasn't what she'd wanted to say, but it made the same point.

"You've got ten years, with treatment," Jet said - he really had done his research. "We've got a trauma surgeon, and we can get the medications."

"It's not..." she began, although what it wasn't, she didn't quite know. "That will only prolong the inevitable."

"Dammit," he hissed, and grabbed her by the shoulder, turning her forcibly around. The silk hanging fell from her hands, and she looked anywhere but him, staring hard at the cloth pooled at her feet. "It's still ten years. Why do you want to spend it with people who don't even _know_ you?"

 _"Because_ they don't know me," she answered, finally looking up at him. He watched her carefully for a long moment, and then leaned against her bedpost.

"Look me in the eyes," he said softly, "and tell me that you want to go - not that you think you should, or that you think you have to, but that you want to go - and I'll walk out of this shuttle, and this'll be the last you hear of it."

She turned and looked him straight in the eyes, prepared to tell him, but her facade broke before she could speak. He was watching her so carefully, and she could see through him, through the anger, through the sorrow, straight down to the _hurt_ \- this wasn't about the crew, it was about her leaving him, to go away and die alone, without ever giving him a chance. She opened her mouth to speak, but the words just wouldn't come. She just _couldn't_ look Jet in the eyes and tell him that she _wanted_ to go.

He waited for a response for a short while, as the tension rose and then slipped away, before nodding.

"That's what I thought," he said softly, and she smiled.


	16. Postlude: The Matryoshka Doll Again

_postlude  
_ At the Fire Nation Palace

In the end, everyone had gotten in on Sokka's plan, and put their own pointers in on the doll, but now, almost two weeks after the coup, a week and a half after the funeral, and only a day before _Freedom_ would leave with Zuko's men to St. Albans, it was finally finished.

Suki rolled her eyes as Sokka fidgeted. "Sokka, calm down," she said, and he ran his hand through his hair.

"Sorry, I just... what if he gets mad at me for giving him a doll? I mean, it's not a doll," he stammered, "or, well, it _is,_ but it's a special sort of doll that - what if he gets really insulted?"

"He won't," she assured him.

"He'll be flattered," Ty Lee chirped, nodding, and lounging comfortably in her seat. Suki smiled at Sokka; he wasn't going with the crew back to St. Albans, because he couldn't bear to open that wound again, so he was joining her and Ty Lee in opening up the new dojo here on Sihnon, in the slums where Ty Lee's sister waited for them - at least, for now. The Kyoshi Warriors would grow here, and she would train a new brigade, then they would spread out, taking to the rest of the worlds, reviving the ancient line as they went. Ty Lee was all for it, and Sokka was half of the reason it was happening - she wasn't sure she would have had the strength to try again if she hadn't known he was supporting her.

And then, Aang had told her something just a few days ago that had made her more determined than ever: _Kyoshi is watching you_ , he had said, _and she wanted me to tell you that she's proud of you_.

She wouldn't let Kyoshi down, not again.

Aang walked in the room then, confused, and looked at the three of them. "Katara said you were looking for me? What did you need?" he asked, and Sokka glanced to her for support. She shot him a thumbs up, and he smiled tentatively.

"In the Water Tribe," he said seriously, and then caught himself. "Well, you might already know. Do you know what a matryoshka doll is?"

"A nesting doll," Aang replied immediately. "A symbol of how all parts of the world fit together. Yeah, I know."

Sokka handed over the box, and Aang opened it, peering inside reverently. "We made you one," he said quietly. "Well, I was going to do it, but I, uh, I'm not such a great carver, so Suki helped, and then Ty Lee got in on it, and then everyone wanted to make sure that they looked right, so... we all pitched in."

Aang pulled the large doll out and ran his hands over it, a smile forming on his face. He opened _Freedom_ to reveal the Jet doll with his little cigarette, and then within it was Bee with a friendly smile, and within her was Longshot in his pilot's vest, and then Pipsqueak with a huge grin, and then the Duke with his dorky armor and all of his grenades, and then Toph with her visor, and then Haru and his mustache, and then Mai with her knives on her arms, Katara in full Companion dress, Zuko with his scar and his teacup, Ty Lee with her braid cascading down her shoulder, Suki with both of her fans, Sokka giving the world two thumbs up, a portly Iroh wearing a large smile, and then, at the very center, the tiniest doll, was Aang.

"I did the tattoos!" Ty Lee cried eagerly when he pulled out the little likeness of himself, and when Aang looked up, there were tears in his eyes.

"Thank you," he said quietly, fervently, and Suki smiled.

 **end.**


End file.
